One of My Personal Heroes: Colleen Miller

I decided this week that I’m going to write some posts about my personal heroes. I probably won’t write all of these posts in consecutive weeks but will write them when there is nothing else that calls out for immediate attention. Some of the folks I will write about will be famous people, some will be people I’ve never met but whom I greatly admire, and some will be people I’ve known in my own life. Today I begin with one of my greatest heroes: Colleen Miller. She was my paternal grandmother, whom I called Granny.

Verda Colleen Miller was born on April 21, 1931. Colleen, as she was known, was born and raised in rural Kansas. Her father was what they used to call a cad or a scamp who was pretty much never around. She found out later in life that her father had a couple of other families in different parts of the country. Her mother was young and was a bit of a “rolling stone” herself so Colleen was mostly raised by her aunts in the tiny little hamlet of Miltonvale, Kansas. After high school she moved to Enid, Oklahoma to attend a business school. There she met Everett Miller (sound familiar?) and they married in 1950. They lived on the Miller family wheat farm and raised four children (including my dad Lee) while also raising crops and animals. While Everett was more of a joker, Colleen was very stern with the kids and made them toe the line. Sometimes, perhaps to get away from it all, she used to like to go walking through a small orchard on the family land. After all four of the kids were grown and out of the house, the marriage disintegrated and, after being a farm wife and mother for three decades, she was on her own. Everett remarried soon after the divorce and died just a few years later of pancreatic cancer. Both of them must have been somewhere around 50 years old when they divorced. Colleen asked, “What now?” She did what every 50-year-old does (read sarcasm); she went to college. She enrolled at Phillips University in Enid, Oklahoma, a small liberal arts college (that doesn’t exist anymore) affiliated with the Disciples of Christ denomination. She got a degree in sociology. “What now?” she asked. “Grad school!” She enrolled in the school of social work at the University of Oklahoma in Norman. She graduated and became a licensed medical social worker, taking a position on the birthing floor at the University of Oklahoma Hospital in Oklahoma City. She did a lot of work with incarcerated mothers, impoverished mothers, drug addicted mothers, etc. All this time I really didn’t know her that well as I was a kid growing up in South Carolina. I’d spent a little bit of time with her, received a one dollar bill for every birthday and talked to her on the phone at Christmas, but that was about it.

When I moved to Oklahoma in high school I started to spend some more time with her on breaks from school. She lived in an apartment in a high rise building in downtown Oklahoma City. Whenever I visited her I slept on her red velour couch. She always called it a “divan,” which is a word I’d never heard and sounded quite fancy. Also, Granny liked computers. She had the internet before I’d ever even seen it before, and she immediately started using it to do genealogy. I loved going out on her balcony at night to see all the city lights. I got to know her fairly well during those times, although I never appreciated her. What I remember most about those years was her little “briefcase.” Granny was quite short, maybe 5’0”, and she had to carry a little cassette tape case with her everywhere she went. It looked like a little briefcase. It was to put on the floor to place her feet on in a restaurant or at the movies because otherwise her feet wouldn’t touch the floor and it hurt her back. She was a breast cancer survivor and she had osteoporosis, heart disease, and severe sciatica. She was in pain a great deal of the time. Oftentimes I was given the job of carrying her little “briefcase” when I was with her. As a teenager I hated that and cared too much about what other random strangers might think of me. I did it, though, because Granny could get pretty grumpy. My cousins and I still talk about how she would tear into a waiter if they got her order wrong. Because of her health she had to be very particular about her food. As long as you weren’t a waiter, though, she was a very kind person.

On the morning of April 19, 1995, while I was a couple of hours away in the town where I went to high school, Granny went to work as she always did. The hospital was just a few miles from her high rise apartment. While she was in the elevator at work at 9:01 am the elevator jolted and there was a loud boom. She got off at her floor and found out in the coming hours that the unthinkable had happened—a Ryder truck filled with homemade explosives had been ignited at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building less than two miles away in downtown Oklahoma City, later finding that 168 people had died. Granny worked throughout the day and coming days as patients came through the doors of the hospital. Also, in that split second that it took that bomb to ignite, my Granny became homeless. Her apartment building was across the street from the Murrah Building. The building had cracked and every window on her side was blown out imbedding glass into everything she owned. She lost pretty much everything. She had to start over… again.

She finally decided to retire and she moved to Norman where she had two daughters, a son-in-law, and three grandsons living. She got a little apartment not far from the OU campus. That was a factor in my deciding to attend the University of Oklahoma. I later transferred to Oklahoma State. During those two years at OU, I spent a lot of time at Granny’s apartment. We ate Arby’s together and she always had Sprite in the fridge because she knew it was my favorite. We watched Animal Planet together and she loved her little parakeet Petey (I think that was his name). They had lengthy conversations together. Eventually, after an accident, she had to give up her green Ford Escort and start using a scooter that she named Blue. She would ride Blue across the street to the grocery store and through the neighborhood to St. Stephen's United Methodist Church where she became a very active member in her later years. She was one of my best friends during the first two years of college, which were very rough for me. I had a lot of trouble making friends but Granny was always there for me. She didn’t always tell me what I wanted to hear but she was always there. During those years I had no idea how poor she was financially. I didn’t realize that until I mentioned to one of my aunts that I was going to ask Granny for a loan to help me out with school. She’d been so generous to me that I assumed she had a bunch of money. My aunt informed me of the actual situation and I never asked for the money, which is good because Granny probably would have given it.

Before the fall of 1998 I decided to transfer to Oklahoma State University about 90 minutes away. I later found out that this grieved my Granny deeply. I graduated, got married, Danielle graduated, and then we moved to Austin, Texas for me to attend seminary. I didn’t call Granny as much as I should have but when I did she was always glad to hear from me. In the spring of 2005 I headed up to Oklahoma to meet with some folks about doing an internship in a small Oklahoma town about an hour from Norman. I was excited that I’d get to reunite with Granny on a regular basis, at least for ten weeks. The night before the meeting, I slept on Granny’s pull out couch (the old divan had been destroyed in the bombing). I opened the fridge and there was a can of Sprite waiting for me and we had Arby’s for supper. Granny had lost a lot of weight since I’d seen her, and her sciatic nerve pain was excruciating. She told me several times how much she loved me and how proud of me she was. Also, that night she handed me a $1,000 check and told me that she wanted Danielle and me to have it. I tried to refuse but she wouldn’t let me. I didn’t know where she’d gotten $1,000. The next morning it was really cold and I didn’t have a coat with me as I was used to Austin. She made me put on her pastel blue and pink Southwestern print fleece jacket. She hugged me extra long and stood in the doorway and waved as I pulled out of the parking spot. That was in April. On Wednesday, May 18, just a couple of weeks before I was to move up to Oklahoma for the summer, my dad called me to tell me that Granny had died in her sleep. I wasn’t surprised but I was devastated.

When Granny died she was really just my Granny, but as I matured and experienced more in my life, through my memories of her and stories told by others, she became not just my Granny, but my hero. I will give you four quick reasons why Colleen became my hero.

Colleen was an avid lifelong learner. She read constantly and when her eyes went bad she listened to books on tape. She learned how to use the computer at an age when most people wouldn’t bother. She kept me supplied with books, often taking me to Borders or Barnes & Noble and letting me pick out a book for her to buy for me. She also started volunteering with a theater company in Oklahoma City. It was something she’d always wanted to do. She loved the theater. Her curiosity was insatiable and no subject was outside of her interests. I’m a lot like her in that way. When she died she was enrolled in a conversational Spanish course through her church. What she planned to use that Spanish for I have no idea. She probably just wanted to learn it. That’s one reason she is my hero.

Colleen served others in the midst of her suffering. My Grandpa had left her, so she went to school to learn how to help others. She was in physical pain all the time, yet she’d take us out to eat or to the movies. She suffered from depression yet she helped young women through some terribly depressing situations. She lost everything she owned, yet she helped others who’d lost someone they loved. She complained much less than I would have, and she served much more than I would have too. She even donated her body for medical research to help medical students learn to become doctors. That’s another reason she is my hero.

Colleen was a very spiritual person. After her divorce she eventually became a Roman Catholic, going through all that entails. I actually have her confirmation stole in my office. She eventually left the Catholic Church, though, because although she loved deeply the liturgy and pageantry of the Catholic Church she simply couldn’t abide any longer the Catholic Church’s views on several issues such as homosexuality and the role of women in ministry. I remember asking Granny once, “What’s the Holy Spirit like?” She thought for a moment and then responded, “The way I experience the Holy Spirit is like a jar of warm oil being poured over my head.” I’ve obviously never forgot that. She studied the Bible and prayed and served as long as she could. She had a quiet spirituality about her but she was always willing to talk about it if I asked. That’s another reason she is my hero.

When she finally found the church where she felt she belonged, it was St. Stephen’s Methodist Church in Norman. She loved St. Stephen’s. St. Stephen’s motto is “Where all are welcome.” They describe themselves as “a progressive Christian church that is open and affirming of all ages, ethnicities, sexual orientations, economic brackets and walks of life.” At the time, and in some ways still today, it was the only congregation in Norman that took all comers and took them as they were. Whatever venom she didn’t use on waiters who didn’t get her seventeen substitutions right, she would put into someone whom she felt was a bigot. My Granny was fierce in defending her open and affirming church. When I would raise my eyebrows about some things, she would often say something to me like “This isn’t about an issue; this is about a person. How would you want to be treated if you were that person?” At least by the last decade or so of her life, Colleen was the most accepting person I’ve ever met. Her memory encourages me to stretch my own acceptance. That’s yet another reason she is my hero.

After Granny’s death, and after her ashes were returned to us, we took half of them up to the old orchard where she used to walk and watch birds. My son Wyatt, who is now six and never got to meet her, was just starting to walk at the time. It was a really windy day in northern Oklahoma. My uncle stepped over the barbed wire fence and avoided cow patties to spread her ashes out. Right at the moment he released them, the wind shifted and blew Granny all over his face. He came back wiping his face off and laughing. “Granny’s revenge!” we called it. The other half of her ashes was placed in the columbarium in the courtyard of her beloved St. Stephen’s Methodist Church. I was able to be a part of that simple committal service as well. I miss her every single day. She wasn’t just my Granny. She was my friend. She was my mentor. She was my hero.

By the way, my three-year-old daughter’s name is Josselyn Colleen Miller. She hasn’t started yelling at waiters yet, but like her great-grandmother, her curiosity is insatiable.

May the peace of God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit fill your week.

Pastor Everett

Confessions of a Former Racist

I grew up (ages 3-14) in South Carolina where the Civil War is merely on a temporary ceasefire. The culture I grew up in was pretty racist. Don’t get me wrong; not everyone in South Carolina is a racist. I’m just saying that the culture, at least during the 80’s and 90’s when I lived there, seemed pretty racist when I think back on it. The racism I grew up around wasn’t usually an aggressive kind of racism; it was more of a condescending kind of racism. “She’s pretty…for a black woman” or “He’s seems articulate for a black man” were the kinds of statements I heard fairly regularly. I remember someone in my family saying, “I’m not a racist, but I can’t stand Filipinos.” I’m pretty sure that the second clause in that statement negates the first clause. When we were in another part of the country I remember hearing from another part of my family, “Not that I’m a racist, but I’d like this town a lot better if it wasn’t so full of Mexicans.” Stuff like that. Also, I am grieved to admit that I bullied a boy during middle school because he was biracial. This bullying took a more violent turn when I was thirteen and some older boys goaded me into fighting that boy. I have sought him out and apologized to him for my behavior all those years ago. Someday I will tell you the full story behind that incident. I’ve lived with the guilt of what I did that day for over twenty years now. The racism got a pretty good hold on me by the time I was in early adulthood. Even into college I had no problem using the “n-word” in casual conversation. I was, of course, too big of a wimp to use that language toward someone else, however. I was definitely a racist. So what changed?

Probably the first thing that changed was that I went to work in an office with people of different races. I actually got to know people who looked different from me. I got to know their stories. I got to a point where I could, as Dr. King said, “judge them based not upon the color of their skin but upon the content of their character.” It is much harder to be a racist when you are spending ten hour work days sitting just a few feet from people of other races. A second thing that happened was that I finally moved out of a homogenous small town and moved to a big city. While living in Austin, Texas, I was surrounded by people of many races and nationalities, especially by people of Mexican heritage, many of whom still spoke Spanish as their primary language. Also, I became good friends with seminary classmates of other races, had professors of other races, and learned more about different cultures and their history. For one of my classes, I went to worship at a predominantly African American Catholic Church as well as to Spanish speaking worship services. The experiences of my first job and then seminary in Austin put me in positions where I either had to grow in acceptance or retreat into an insulated homogeny. I’m glad that the Holy Spirit kept pulling me toward an acceptance that better reflects the Kingdom of God.

The most powerful experience for me in regard to finally getting me out of the darkness of racial prejudice into the light of celebrating diversity came when I served a ten week intensive internship as the student pastor to four small congregations in rural Oklahoma. Two of those congregations were Presbyterian congregations that had been founded at the end of the Seminole Trail of Tears from Florida to Oklahoma. All of the church members were also members of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma and one of those congregations conducted their services completely in the Seminole language (a dialect of the Creek language). I spent long days during which I was the only person who was not Native American and quite often the only person that did not understand the language. My skin and hair were light and everyone else had reddish brown skin and black hair. I ate food I’d never heard of and learned of the joys and challenges of being Native American in the 21st Century. I went to powwows and ate fry bread. During that summer I read Seminole history and found out the tragic reality of what racism can do when it is institutionalized. I learned what it was like to walk into a room and have everyone turn to stare at you. It was an intensely lonely feeling sometimes, but it was invaluable.

It was during my time in seminary that I started to learn more about Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and to actually read some of his writings. I checked out an anthology of his writings from the library and I was mesmerized. Like most everyone else, I was blown away by his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” especially in hearing that he wrote that letter in bits and pieces on old newspapers and toilet paper in his jail cell. The fact that he wrote that letter to other pastors, specifically white pastors who claimed to support civil rights but wouldn’t aid Dr. King when he came to their own city, convicted me and forced me to ask, “Would I actually be willing to face a policeman’s baton or a police dog for what I claim to believe?” Also, would I be willing to face my own congregation (in the 1960’s South), many of whom would disagree with me, and be willing to stand up to them for justice? That would probably be harder than facing the police. Those police couldn’t fire you and kick you and your family out of the manse. Also during that time I learned about Dietrich Bonheoffer, the German Lutheran pastor, who stood up to Hitler by speaking against the Nazi extermination of Jews (the ultimate example of institutionalized racism) and ended up being executed in a Nazi prison just days before the war in Europe came to an end.

When I look at my life, I see that I had to overcome more than twenty years of racism, both around me and within me. I don’t want my kids to have to undo twenty years of prejudice like I did. So I am raising them in a way that celebrates diversity. At first, we tried to raise our kids without a concept of race. We just never mentioned it. We never differentiated between one person or another. It was an experiment. Then we started getting questions from the kids about why people look differently. Josselyn, who is three, pointed at Denzel Washington on the TV and asked if he was made of chocolate. I have to admit that we got a pretty good laugh out of that one, mostly because our little girl is so obsessed with food that she checks out books at the library about food groups and now she thinks people are made out of food! So we had to address the issue of race with the kids. With Wyatt, who is six, I’ve started to explain that people’s skin is different shades mostly based upon which part of the world their ancestors came from. We have also

read the children’s book Shades of People quite a bit in our house. Last week I read it as a part of my children’s sermon as well. It is a great book for young children. Also, as I’ve mentioned in previous posts, Wyatt and I have read Who Was Martin Luther King Jr.? together. After we read that I showed Wyatt film footage from the march on Selma as well as from the “I Have a Dream” speech. We have also read The Picture Book of Rosa Parks, The Picture Book of Frederick Douglass, and The Picture Book of Cesar Chavez. Today Wyatt read My First Biography: Martin Luther King Jr. to Josselyn and we talked about it together. A few days ago Wyatt and I read an amazing children’s book (from which I learned a great deal) called As Good As Anybody. The first part of the book is the story of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The second part of the book is the story of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel.

The third part of the book is about how they came together. It is a very powerful book. For me, it is of utmost importance that the home Christian discipleship training I provide for my kids to be training that incorporates the saving gospel of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection and the elements of diversity, peace, and justice.

So am I still a racist? Well, I think it is kind of like being an alcoholic. It is still in there somewhere. With God’s help, I fight it. In addition to being like alcoholism, I think it is also kind of like lust. For instance, when I notice an attractive woman other than my wife, I recognize it. I reject it. I move on. I don’t beat myself up about it because I know that isn’t who I am. It is the same with racism. A condescending racist thought will come to mind. I recognize. I reject it. I move on. I don’t beat myself up about it because I know that isn’t who I am anymore because my mind and heart are continually being transformed by the same Spirit who sent Philip to the Ethiopian Eunuch, who sent Peter to the Roman Cornelius, and who strengthened Dr. King and who heard as Dr. King and the others “prayed with their feet” time and time again. So I guess I should say that I am not an active racist anymore. But I am not a perfect person; I am a sinner who has been granted forgiveness through the cross. So in gratitude for that forgiveness, I open myself to the Spirit so that I might continually be made more and more in the likeness of Christ and through that become a better citizen of the Kingdom of God. It is my prayer that, while my kids will surely have much to repent of in their lives, that they won’t have to repent of the same things I did. It is also my prayer that they might not even think of races as much as they will think of different shades of people within one human race, all of whom are created in the image of God.

See the Christ in others this week, and show them the Christ in you.

Grace and Peace,
Pastor Everett

Inviting the Great Cloud of Witnesses Over for Dinner

Before I begin, I want to put in a plug for a six-week adult Sunday school class/book study that I’m going to lead here at First Presbyterian Church in Washington Court House, Ohio during the season of Lent, which is Sunday, February 17 through Sunday, March 24. The study and the book it is based on are called Faith Begins at Home. It is targeted at parents but any adult who is interested can attend. There will be a sign up sheet at the Hinde Street Entrance so that I can get an idea of how many books I need to order. I’m so excited for it and I hope that many of you will find value in it. I have really found a passion when it comes to discipling my own kids and resourcing parents to fulfill our responsibilities in doing everything within our power, and asking for God's power to do the ultimate work, to pass the Christian faith onto our kids. So within that passion (I promise I won’t write on this forever) I have another idea to help out.

In addition to the many ways to help our kids grow in faith that I have mentioned in the past several weeks, something else you can do, which should never replace worship and Bible study but can accompany and supplement those essentials, is to educate them about faithful Christians who have come before. I think that very often we operate in our own faith and pass the faith on to our kids in a way that kind of skips from the Bible to us. What about all those faithful folks in the 2,000 years in between? I have recently ordered the book The Church History ABCs by Stephen J. Nichols and Ned Bustard

and I can't wait for it to show up. It seems like a great starting place. And this isn’t just something we should do with our kids. Those of us who are adult Christians can be built up by reading of the lives of those brothers and sisters in Christ who have come before us and by learning from their examples. In 1 Corinthians 4, the Apostle Paul writes, “Even though you have ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel. Therefore I urge you to imitate me.” I don’t think Paul was trying to be conceited. Just by reading his letters you know the man had a firm grasp on his own sinfulness and shortcomings. But he also knew that Christian leaders are supposed to set an example for others. And while we must begin by reading of Jesus’ sinless life, it sure helps to see what it looks like when sinful people like us really give the Christian life a go. Just look at Hebrews chapters 11 and 12, which talks about the “great cloud of witnesses” that surround us and from whom we can gain courage to run our own race of faith. In the Apostles' Creed this is what we refer as the “communion of the saints.” This is what the 16th Century document called The Second Helvetic Confession (which is in our PCUSA Book of Confessions) says about what Protestants often call “heroes of the faith”:

“We do not adore, worship, or pray to the saints in heaven… [yet] we do not despise the saints or think basely of them. For we acknowledge them to be living members of Christ and friends of God who have gloriously overcome the flesh and the world. Hence we love them as brothers [and sisters], and also honor them…We also imitate them. For with ardent longings and supplications we earnestly desire to be imitators of their faith and virtues, to share eternal salvation with them, to dwell with them in the presence of God, and to rejoice with them in Christ.”

Although most of us in Protestant churches don’t agree with the level of veneration offered to saints by our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters in Christ, I think we have a great deal to learn from these family members and how they look to those who have gone before to find helpful examples of faithfulness. We can do the same, just in a Protestant way.

Now before starting to share the lives of Christian heroes with our kids, I think there are a few concerns that every Christian needs to consider. These three concerns also fall within the major emphases within our particular Presbyterian Church (USA) branch of the Christian family tree. These three concerns are Eurocentrism, androcentrism, and looking at Church history through rose colored glasses.

Eurocentrism means viewing everything from the perspective of Europeans and peoples of European descent and working out of the premise that European cultures are automatically superior to non-European cultures. What I mean is that pretty much every resource I can find for sharing with kids the examples of “Christian heroes” is a book about white people taking the gospel to people of color. Some reasons that this occurs is that, truthfully, Europe was the center of Christian faith for much of Christian history, although there are now more Christians in the Southeran Hemisphere than in the Northern Hemisphere. Also, it was white people who were writing the history. And we live in a culture which has been for much of its history Eurocentric. That being said, I wholeheartedly believe that we should share faithful examples with our kids no matter where they come from, regardless of the shade of our own skin. If the vast majority of the resources deal with white people preaching to people of color then I’m still willing to use those resources but I'm going to have to do some additional intentional research to supplement. I will talk to my kids about it and I will do whatever I can to find more diverse examples to share with my kids. In fact, I just found a great book on Amazon that

I plan to order called Heroes in Black History: True Stories from the Lives of Christian Heroes. It looks great! As I mentioned last week, Wyatt and I are learning about Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. right now and I am making sure that Wyatt knows that Dr. King’s faith was a driving force behind his fight for Civil Rights. Now Wyatt wants to learn about Rosa Parks, who was a woman of strong Christian faith and a member of the African Methodist Episcopal denomination. Her faith gave her the conviction that she was made in the image of God just as much as anyone else and her faith got her through the very tough times. Connected to this, I try (whenever possible) to find Bible story books that portray Jesus as he surely was—a black haired, olive skinned, Middle Eastern Jewish man who was out in the sun all the time. I don’t want my kids to think that Jesus looked like an Olympic skier from Norway and I don't want them to think that Christianity is merely a white person’s faith. Actually there are more Christians of color in the world than white Christians by far. I want Josselyn and Wyatt to learn about Samuel Morris and other Christians of non-European descent. But again, that doesn’t mean that I’m not going to teach them about John Calvin or Amy Carmichael or Billy Graham.

The second concern is called “androcentrism,” which is defined as “the practice, conscious or otherwise, of placing male human beings or the masculine point of view at the center of one's view of the world and its culture and history.” I am not interested at this point in getting into a debate with my more conservative brothers and sisters in Christ about women in the pulpit. That’s not the main issue here. Regardless of which particular roles a denomination feels that men and women should play within the life of the church, it must not be denied that there are as many Christian women who we should be imitating as there are Christian men. So when I just ordered several children’s books for Wyatt to read about Christian heroes I made sure that I ordered about as many books about Christian women as I did about Christian men. In "A Brief Statement of Faith of the PC(USA)," which is in our Book of Confessions, we read, “We trust in God the Holy Spirit…the same Spirit who inspired the prophets and apostles…and calls women and men to all ministries of the Church.” I don’t believe this because it is in the Brief Statement of Faith, but because I believe the Brief Statement of Faith is a proper interpretation of Scripture. Again, I’m not interested in a debate at this time. You’re reading the blog of a PC(USA) pastor so you’re going to get the perspective of a PC(USA) pastor. All that being said, I think we all need to include both female and male heroes of the faith in both the instruction of our kids and in our own study. I want my kids to learn about Perpetua and Anne Bradstreet just as much as I want them to know about St. Augustine and John Wesley.

The final concern here is the painful and embarrassing reality that the Christian church has been used by many evil people to do evil things. With older kids (maybe 5th grade and up) I think it is important to talk with them about the ways that sinful human beings and sinful systems have used the Church to harm and destroy others, about how the church has tried her best to sell her soul to the devil. When Wyatt and Josselyn are older we will talk about the evils of Christian anti-Semitism, the misuse of the Bible to support slavery, the Spanish inquisition, the role the church played in the destruction of Native American cultures, and other tragic sins of the Church. When my kids are old enough to handle it, I don’t want my kids to have a cleaned-up version of Church history. I want them to know that our sinfulness is so pervasive that we can even use Christ’s church as a tool for evil, and to warn them against this and to help them identify it when it is happening (i.e. Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, KS). Also, when our kids are in high school and especially when they go to college, they are going to be confronted with the Church’s sometimes tragic and oppressive history. Trust me, we don’t want that to be the first time our kids hear of it. They need to already have been given the tools to confront that dark history from within the context of faith instead of being introduced to it in a way that is antagonistic toward the Christian faith.

Also, although our culture these days only seems to want to look at the negatives of Church history, I want my kids to know that very often it was Christians who fought against these same injustices. For instance, while the Bible was used by some to defend slavery, the abolitionist movement was spearheaded by Christians who used the Bible to fight against slavery. Just think of William Wilberforce in England. Also, while Spanish conquistadors were destroying Native cultures and murdering their people all under the guise of Christianity, there were a few (very few) Christians like Bartolome de las Casas who actually saw it firsthand, was horrified by it, and became known as the “Protector of the Indians.” While Belgium, a supposedly Christian nation under King Leopold II, was severing the hands of Congolese children when they did not harvest enough rubber, it was a British Baptist missionary named Alice Harris who photographed the atrocities and had them published throughout the world to bring righteous outrage against the horrors. Not just our kids, but all of us Christians, need to know these stories in order to have a mature faith. When my kids are older I promise you that they will know.

There are all sorts of fellow Christians to learn about. Have a teenager who is really into science? Learn about Francis Collins, who was the director of the world changing Human Genome Project and then share that with your kids. In

opposition to the vast majority of scientists, Francis Collins is a faithful Christian as well as being one of the world's top scientists. Or you could learn about John Polkinghorne, the British physicist who became an Anglican priest. You could learn about Galileo's troubles with the Church. Galileo was a devout Christian, even though he was at odds with the Church hierarchy. Have a musical kid? Learn about the faith of J.S. Bach or the story of Handel's Messiah. There's so much out there to learn! And it will help us to pass the faith on to our kids.

One great resource is the online archives of the now defunct Christian History magazine. This is an amazing resource. You can learn all kinds of cool stuff here: Christian History

So I hope you will consider, along with the rest of your family, exploring the lives of the "great cloud of witnesses" of the men and women of Christian faith who have walked the path before us. It can only serve to build us up in our faith. Please check out the link below that is filled with more than 80 resources I've put on an Amazon wishlist to give you ideas.

Here is a link to a 4 Page list I made of resources about heroes of the faith.

Blessings on your week in the name of Christ Jesus our Lord!
Pastor Everett

Family Worship at Our House

Before I begin, it should be understood that family worship is, in a sense, in the middle of the “worship sandwich.” It is the middle category between personal worship and corporate worship. Personal worship is done by each individual Christian and often utilizes devotional books like Upper Room or These Days, which are both available on the table by Rajean’s office, and are great for this. That could be in the morning, late at night, on your lunch hour, during your planning period, whenever. It should also include prayer. Corporate worship is, of course, what we do at First Presbyterian Church at 10:15 am on Sundays in the sanctuary. That’s when the community of faith gathers together. Personal and family worship flow into corporate worship. Patrick Kavanaugh, in his wonderful book entitled Raising Children to Adore God: Instilling a Lifelong Passion for Worship, writes, “The greatest worshipers I have ever known come to church on Sunday ready to go; the pump is already primed because they have spent the week worshiping God.”

Each evening, when Danielle, Wyatt (6), Josselyn (3), and I sit down at the dinner table together we, like pretty much every Christian family, begin by asking God’s blessing on our food. Sometimes we sing the “Johnny Appleseed Song;” sometimes we sing the doxology; sometimes we sing “The Superman Prayer.” Sometimes I lead us in a spoken prayer. But at least half the time one of the kids will lead us in prayer and the rest of us will repeat after them. I love hearing my three-year-old little girl pray, with folded hands, “Thank you God. Thank you for our food. Thank you for our family. Thank you for our church and school. Amen.” Then, as we’re eating, we do what we have named “The Daily Sandwich.” Sometimes Josselyn goofs up and calls it “The Daily Bread.” I love it that my three-year-old accidentally quotes the Lord’s Prayer sometimes. She also had her mermaid doll in the bathtub praying, “Thy kingdom come” each time she came out of the water. Anyway, that’s probably enough bragging on my kids (for now). The daily sandwich is when each person tells a good thing from that day, a bad thing from that day, and ends with another good thing. Even Josselyn can do this quite well and we hear all kinds of great stuff from both kids. None of these things are family worship, but they do make it easier for us to flow into family worship (some call it family devotions) right after dinner.

We have our family worship immediately after we eat. It is a time that works for us. We are all four at the table and it is not quite time for bath and bed. Sometimes I do have a meeting at the church or Cub Scouts, but on those days we just eat a little earlier than on other days. If for some reason we don’t eat at home, we tend to do it at the dinner table sometime before going to bed. We’ve tried to do it in the living room but there are just too many distractions for the kids to make it work for us. While the dinner table certainly is not the only (or even the best for some families) place for family worship to take place, I want to take a quick aside to put in a plug for frequent shared family meals at the dinner table. I don’t know what the primary sources are for the following findings but I’ve found them in several places and do remember hearing many of them in my youth ministry courses in seminary. Supposedly, when the entire family eats dinner together on a regular basis, you tend to eat healthier meals and smaller portions. Kids are less likely to become overweight or obese. Kids are more likely to stay away from cigarettes. Kids are less likely to drink alcohol or try marijuana or illicit drugs. School grades tend to be better. When surveys were done of the students with the highest ACT and SAT scores, one of the striking common denominators was that a great percentage of the highest scorers reported a high frequency of eating dinner together at the dinner table with the family (no TV). The most important reasons, however, are that you and your kids will talk more, you'll be more likely to hear about a serious problem, kids will feel like you're proud of them, and there will be less stress and tension at home. We may say, “We’re too busy for that.” In response that I’d challenge us all to ask ourselves the question: “Are we, then, perhaps too busy?”

After we finish eating, we clear the table as a family. A few times we tried not clearing the table yet so we wouldn’t have to struggle with Josselyn to get her back to the table willingly, but we kept finding her reaching into the bowls or onto other people’s plates during the prayers. That little girl is like a cute little blonde haired goat. Actually, the last time we didn’t clear the table first she spread herself across the table during a song in an attempt to grab the last of the pork chops. It also seems more reverent to me to have a clean table instead of half eaten food all over the table. So after we finish eating, we clear the table, spray it down, and wipe it and then immediately return to the clean table for family worship, which includes three basic elements: Scripture, song, and prayer.

Having a six-year-old and a three-year-old, we do our Scripture reading out of a story Bible. We use the Spark Story Bible, which is the same Bible we use in our Sunday school curriculum at the church. You could use any good story Bible. We have started in with the New Testament stories. Based upon some things I’ve read, I believe it is best to start with Jesus. The most important aspects of the Christian faith for our young kids to take in on a daily basis are the person and work of Jesus Christ. How can we expect them to grow into a mature relationship with God through Jesus Christ, to be devoted disciples of Jesus, if they don’t know him? Eventually, we’ll move to the Old Testament, but I’d really like for that to happen when they have a solid grasp on who their Lord and Savior is. So each day we begin family worship by reading one story from the Spark Story Bible going in order from “Angels Visit” onward. If it is three or four pages (illustrated and large print) then Danielle or I read it. If it is short, Wyatt reads it. Josselyn usually tries whispering something to one of us in the midst of the reading. She has trouble being quiet and listening, even with pictures! We do not discuss the reading as of yet. When the kids are older we will discuss whatever we read.

After the reading, we sing two or three (sometimes four) songs together. Some of the songs we sing are church camp songs or some of the old standard praise songs like “Step by Step,” but mostly what we sing are kids Bible/worship songs. We love Wee Sing: Bible Songs because there are 63 songs, sung by kids, with an accompanying songbook. We sing along with the CD. If someone in your family plays an instrument you could do this the old fashioned (and better) way. After we sing those songs (sometimes with motions), each person has a chance to make a prayer request. During this time, Josselyn has asked us to pray for Jennifer Shaw’s family after her death. We were surprised when we heard that. Wyatt has asked for prayers for the family of Mary Alice Stolsenberg (he couldn’t say Stolsenberg), for Byers Shaw, for the Darling-Collins family after their fire, and also for courage for the first day at school during which he’d have to wear his new glasses. After getting these prayer requests (along with Danielle’s and mine), I lead us in a brief prayer of thanksgiving for our family, of intercession for those requests, and we end with the Lord’s Prayer. When we say “For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen,” we’re done. The whole thing takes fifteen minutes, but it is such an incredibly important fifteen minutes. We do this seven days a week. Since we’d participated in the worship of the gathered covenant community of faith that morning, we tried to take Sunday evenings off but the kids wouldn’t let us. They demanded family worship.

I don’t want to give you the wrong impression. There are not angels flying around our dining room during family worship. The children are not always sitting with folded hands and heavenly smiles pouring out their little hearts to God. Danielle and I are not always well rested and excited for family worship at the end of a long day. Not only has Josselyn pawed pork chops during prayers, but she’s fallen out of her booster seat and banged her head on the floor in the middle of a song. The kids have gotten in fights over who gets to pick a song for us to sing, practically coming to blows over "Peace Like a River." Wyatt has interrupted the prayer to find out if we are, in fact, going to finish the prayer with the Lord’s Prayer (like we’ve done every single night) just so he could “be ready” for it when it happened. Different families will have different challenges, as well as different blessings, when it comes to family worship depending upon the age of their kids and the attitudes and personalities of everyone in the family.

I would say when a kid hits the third grade, it is probably time to switch to reading out of the actual Biblical text or maybe even moving to the NIrV (New International Readers Verson). Since in a couple of years we’ll have a third grader and a five-year-old, we’ll have to see what works best. We may read out of the story Bible and then read the same section out of the actual Biblical text. We’ll see. There are also a lot of great family devotion books that give you a daily reading from Scripture, a brief story or comment on it, some questions to discuss and even prayer prompts. Something we plan to incorporate into family worship at some time in the future is learning the Ten Commandments, probably at first in kid-friendly language. I’d also like for us to learn Jesus’ summary of the law, “You shall love the Lord your God… and your neighbor as yourself.” I’d like for us to memorize the fruits of the Spirit as well as gain some guidance in personal prayer. Eventually, when the kids are older, our Scripture reading during family worship will also be accompanied by a brief devotion based on the Westminster Shorter Catechism, which is really just a way to understand Scripture better. As the kids get older, the songs will change as well. There will be stages during which we need to do some little kid stuff and some bigger kid stuff. Eventually I’d like for us to sing both popular praise songs and hymns. We might try different kinds of prayer. It is also important to me to incorporate elements that push us toward living out our faith in ways that care for the “least of these” and that look toward Christian social justice. In addition to doing other things, we can sing the old song that goes: “What does the Lord require of you? What does the Lord require of you? To do justice, and love kindness, and walk humbly before your God.” Whatever we incorporate into this time will fall into the categories of Scripture, song, and prayer. This is not craft time or game time (which are both entirely appropriate at other times). This is worship time.

If you are like me, right now you are thinking of all the reasons this won’t work. We don’t have time for this. Well, we’ll have to make time if it is important to us. My kids will hate it. Maybe they will; maybe they won’t. Perhaps you can find a way that will engage the kids. But, Everett, I have teenagers! They just might surprise you. They may say it’s dorky and they don’t want to do it. It’s embarrassing for them. Try it anyway. There are resources available for parent-teen devotions. But, we don’t have kids at all or kids in the house anymore. You can still have family worship. In fact, it will probably be easier for you to start this than it has been for any of us. Honestly, Everett, we are Presbyterian Church (USA) Christians, not those kinds of Christians that always seem to have eight kids who are all homeschooled. This is for ultra-conservative fundamentalist religious zealots! Firstly, I'd remind you that those folks are our brothers and sisters in Christ. Secondly, I want you to know that it is not true that family worship is only for "those kinds of Christians." If you didn't read it, I refer you to last week’s post, which includes the words from our very own current edition of the PC(USA) Book of Order that prescribe (or at least encourage) family worship for PC(USA) families. The truth of the matter is that the kinds of Christians that family worship is for are those Christians who take their faith seriously, people who sense that every moment of every day is an encounter with God, people who realize that the home has more of an effect (for good or bad) on the longterm viability of our kids' faith than the congregation does, and people who really care about leading their kids into a lifelong relationship with the Triune God through following Jesus Christ.

In addition to family worship, each night when the kids are tucked in we do a devotion with the kids (individually). Right now, Wyatt is finishing up Five Minute Devotions for Kids: New Testament. In addition to that devotional, Wyatt and I are also reading together through a book called Who Was Martin Luther King Jr.? We’re talking about the role his faith played in his Civil Rights work. Wyatt is also learning about issues of race and equality. Do you know what Wyatt has picked up on the most from that book? Wyatt has said, “Hey, Mom! Did you know that Martin Luther King Jr. was in the children’s choir at his church? And his dad was a pastor! I’m in the children’s choir at church and my dad is a pastor too!” Josselyn just started Devotions for Preschoolers. Last night she was so excited about it that she tried to hold the book while climbing into bed. She fell, which caused the corner of the brand new hardcover book to poke her in the eye. In pain she dropped the book, causing the same corner to land right on the top of my bare foot. After we writhed in pain together, we had a nice little preschool devotion. There are also additional discipleship activities that I’m doing with Wyatt as well, and will eventually do with Josselyn. However, I don’t have time to discuss those at length in this post. All of these things are, of course, being accompanied by affectionate unconditional love and by our doing our best to walk in the ways of Jesus as well. Our kids will very rarely rise above the example we set for them.

So, finally, here is the long awaited link to numerous family worship resources. If you’d appreciate some help in choosing resources for your family and even some help in paying for those resources, then let me know. Based on the wishes that she expressed to me in the months before she died, some of the Jennifer Shaw Fund could surely go to help us get family worship kick-started in the homes of First Presbyterian Church members. Click on the link and it will take you to an Amazon.com wish list. I encourage you as your pastor, as your friend, as a fellow parent, as someone who cares for your congregation, cares for your family, and cares for you, to consider worshiping as a family. As Jerry Marcellino writes, “The establishment of family worship in the home begins with a conviction and then moves to action.” I hope you have the conviction, and I’m willing to do whatever I can to help you take the action.

Link to Family Worship Resources

I look forward to hearing about your experiences as you begin family worship!

In Service to the Gospel,
Everett

The Family as Intentional Christian Community

In one of my sermons this past summer, I referred to what are called “intentional Christian communities.” These are groups of Christians who move into a house together (or homes on the same street or in the same apartment building), who tend to hold many possessions and tasks in common (shared groceries and meals, babysitting coops, etc.), and who structure their days in an intentionally Christian way through Christian worship and Christian service to others, while usually holding regular jobs as well. Very often the group of Christians who live in the house together come together not only for meals but for morning and evening prayer and, perhaps, for Bible study or other spiritual disciplines. It is very much like monastic life, just in the midst of “the world” instead of separated from it. The new intentional Christian communities are different than monasteries, however, because on Sunday mornings (and other times for mission work) they step outside of the home and gather with the covenant community of believers for worship, discipleship, and fellowship. This is intentional Christian community, and I believe that families—whether that is the traditional nuclear family, a single parent home, grandparents raising children, an empty nest couple, a multi-generational home (the most common form of family in history until recent times), or more than one family living together—are called to be intentional Christian communities as well.

Families are already a community or at least they should be. In most families there is already shared property (“our house” and “our groceries”) and hopefully there is some sense of shared purpose, although usually that could use some clarifying. There is very often a hierarchy (parents in charge) and there are rules (do your homework, home by ten, etc.) But how often, I wonder, in speaking of Christian families (whatever form they may take), is the community of the family intentionally Christian? Should it be? And if it should be, would it be that difficult to lead my family in the direction of being an intentional Christian community?

Well, I believe that I’ve already made the case in the past few weeks’ blog posts that a family of Christians should be an intentional Christian community. Does this mean that we don’t have to be involved in a local congregation anymore? No, it does not mean that. What it means is that on Sunday mornings (and some other times) the church is a gathering of the big family of the covenant community. During the rest of the week, however, for those who live in families, it is the little church of the family that is operable. Remembering that Jesus seems to have viewed family as being a possible obstacle to discipleship when the family stands in the way of one of its members following Jesus, I still believe that a family can be the ultimate training ground and cradle of unconditional love that can do more than any other aspect of the Church to spur its members on to discipleship in Jesus and a living and active role in the larger covenant family of the Church. As many people have experienced, when the family’s religious practices and their lifestyles and ways of treating one another do not match, then the family can be the ultimate obstacle to discipleship in Jesus and a living and active role in the Church. A great football coach once said, “Discipline without love is harassment.” Coming from one of the toughest coaches of his era, that’s really saying something. How many parents have harassed or abused their children to a point where they cannot experience the gospel as anything positive? A great number to be sure. But that doesn’t mean that we don’t operate our families as intentional Christian communities. What it means is that we must do it prayerfully, humbly, with the compassion and unconditional love of God as made manifest in Jesus Christ, and motivated by as pure a heart as the Holy Spirit can grant us. In other words, don’t avoid doing it just because it has been done wrong; do it right.

Over the past several weeks I have been making the case, based on the Scriptures, church history, and the findings of both large studies and anecdotal ministry experience, that it is the responsibility of parents to raise their kids to be mature Christians. The local congregation helps in doing this, but in this particular area of life the congregation plays a supporting role to the parents’ leading role in what amounts to evangelism and discipleship training with their own children. It has been my observation that families that do not provide additional worship and discipleship in the home very often raise kids that are either nominal Christians with little commitment to the community of faith or raise kids that end up not being Christian at all. Don’t get me wrong; living as an intentional Christian community (family worship, discipleship training, and service to those in need) does not guarantee that our kids will become mature lifelong Christians who are invested in the life of a local congregation. Nothing can guarantee that. However, when family worship and discipleship training are done in consistent, heartfelt, gentle, and loving ways that are matched by the everyday example of discipleship in the parents, it raises the chances exponentially of us raising kids that become mature lifelong Christians who are invested in the life of a local congregation. As Mark Devries, a contemporary Presbyterian youth pastor in Nashville, writes, “Research now shows that parents who simply talk about faith in the home and who involve their children in serving alongside them can actually double and sometimes triple their children’s chances of living out their faith as adults.”

You may already be leading your family in daily family worship. If so, I commend you and I ask you to keep reading anyway as you might get some additional encouragement and ideas from this post. If you think that daily family worship is unrealistic or a bad idea I will just go ahead and tell you that I think you are wrong. My hope is that you will keep reading as well so that you might see another side to the issue. Perhaps your dislike for family worship goes deeper than just thinking it is unrealistic. Maybe your parents piously led family worship each night after supper and then the rest of the time they beat you, molested you, neglected you, or called you nasty names. If that happened to you then I am very sorry for your abusive experience of parental hypocrisy. But I also would like to remind you that the problem wasn’t family worship; the problem was that your parents were not living the Christian life. You have the opportunity to do things differently with your own kids. You can be the parents who read the Scriptures, sing, and pray with your kids and who the rest of the time live a life of faithfulness to God and genuine love and peace toward your family. You cannot undo your past experience with family worship, but you can allow God to redeem it.

So let’s (finally) get to what family worship actually is. First I want to spend some time on the importance of family worship in the life of a Christian home and in the fulfillment of Christian parental responsibilities. Then we will explore what family worship actually entails.

Daily family worship was so important to the 17th Century Scottish Presbyterians that in 1647, as a part of the gatherings that resulted in the Westminster Confession and Westminster Catechisms, which have guided Presbyterians ever since, the assembly authored the “Directory for Family Worship.” As a part of this directory, pastors and elders were instructed that they were to enquire with families as to whether or not they were observing daily family worship. If they were found to be neglecting this parental responsibility the head of the household was to be admonished privately on the first offense, reprimanded by the session on the second offense, and on the third offense the head of household was to be barred from the Lord’s Supper as unworthy of partaking of the Sacrament. The assembly goes on to prescribe prayer that includes praying at least for the Church and for each member of the family, the singing of praises, the reading of Scripture, review of catechism, and discussion of proper Christian behavior toward one another and toward our neighbors. A major justification they give for this is that, among other things, daily family worship will grant the benefit that each member of the family will get more out of public worship on Sundays if they’ve been worshiping with their family on Monday through Saturday. While I think we’d all be in trouble if we started barring people from the Lord’s Supper for all the reasons that Presbyterians did back then, I offer us this historical perspective to show how important it is to worship as a family in addition to worshiping with the gathered congregation and to show that family worship is a part of our particular tradition as Presbyterians. Family worship has also been an assumed occurrence within the church throughout much of history. As I mentioned earlier, this is especially true within the churches that come out of the Reformed movement of the 16th Century, which includes the Presbyterian Church (USA).

Moving forward 300 years from the Westminster Assembly we find that in the 1947 Presbyterian Book of Common Worship includes morning and evening prayers for use in daily family worship in the home. Then in our current 2013 version of the Book of Order for the Presbyterian Church (USA) we find this guidance:

“When Christians live together in a family or in a household they should observe times of worship together. When it is possible to worship together daily, households may engage in table prayer (which may be accompanied by the use of Scripture and song), morning and evening prayer, Bible reading (as well as study, reflection, and memorization), singing psalms, hymns, spirituals, and other songs, and expressions of giving and sharing. Given the complexity of schedules and the separations incurred in daily occupations, it is especially important to cultivate the discipline of regular household worship (W-5.7001).”

Our current Book of Order continues:

“The parents or those exercising parental responsibility should teach their children about Christian worship by example, by providing for household worship, and by discussion and instruction. Children join in household worship by praying and singing, listening to and telling Bible stories, reading and memorizing, leading and sharing, and enacting and responding. Children should be taught appropriate elements of worship used regularly in the Service for the Lord’s Day” (W-5.7002).

You see, you don't have to be a Mennonite or a Primitive Baptist to have daily family worship. In fact, as I've demonstrated, it is expected (both historically and currently) of families within the Presbyterian Church (USA). "But nobody ever told me!" you say. Well, nobody ever told me either. I'm just figuring this out too. But now we know, and new knowledge always requires a response--acceptance, further investigation, or rejection. Something must be done with new knowledge. What will we do with the knowledge that, as Christians, as Presbyterians even, we should be running our families as intentional Christian communities?

I've given you the Westminster prescription for family worship, as well as the prescription from our current Book of Order. What might that look like in your own family? Is there something you could start soon? Next week (I promise!) I will describe for you how we operate our home as an intentional Christian community, what our family worship looks like, the joy we are experiencing from it, the growth we already see in our kids after just a few weeks, and what else we plan to do in the near future to add to our family's worship and discipleship. I will also share with you specific resources that I actually own and have tried.

Grace and Peace to All of You!
Everett