When the service ended, two men introduced themselves to Karen and me at the front of the sanctuary. They welcomed us to Cornville and then the taller of the two turned to me and said “when you live here son, you got to declare which side you’re on”. Karen grinned knowingly and turned her attention to the woman who greeted her. Panic began to set in – how could my new wife – a native Cornvillain and familiar with their strange ways, abandon me like that to these 2 grinning sod busters?

“Ugh, politics already” I thought to myself. I’d hoped by moving away from Seattle there wouldn’t be any partisan politics to contend with. Yet there it was and in church of all places! “Do you mean what political party do I belong to?” “Nah, not that. But you still got to declare.” I must have looked to them like a deer caught in the headlights. “I don’t get it” I confessed. “Red or green” he demanded. “You mean like what’s my favorite color?” His grin was replaced by a look of consternation as he blurted out “Are you daft, boy, John Deere or Case IH?”

In the episode A View from the Cross, I shared a dream that the Spirit gave me 20 years ago called the “Strange Fishing Dream”. With the help of friends gifted in interpretation, the dream helped me understand the type of ministry the Lord called me to. Not long after, the Spirit gave me an even stranger fishing dream that for nearly 20 years, I had no interpretation for and I forgot about it. When writing the scripts for the Martha and Deacons episodes the Lord brought that dream back to mind, with an eye-opening interpretation.

The Cow Fish Dream

From the window of a vacant building on a pier over the Puget Sound, I was fishing and hooked a big fish, the size of a cow. Somehow I managed to reel it in on a pole much too small for the job, lifted it out of the water, pulled it through the window and placed it on what looked like a boat cradle. I don’t remember that the fish weighed anything.

NOTE: This article is a follow up to the article Martha! Martha! Martha!

I’ve been inspired to read Acts 6:1-6 in several different translations where I picked up on a few additional cues that raised even more questions concerning the creation and ordination of deacons.

Normally, I use the ESV version for casual reading, which for Acts 6:2, reads in part:

“And the twelve summoned the full number of the disciples …”

The word “summoned” jumped off the page at me and leaves me rather unsettled, because it is often used in situations of authority, e.g., a court of law summons someone under the law to stand before the judge. Strong’s dictionary defines the Greek word προσκαλέομαι (proskaleomai / pros-kal-eh’-om-ahee) G4341 as:

“to call toward oneself, that is, summon, invite”.

You know the story; Jesus and the disciples drop in on Martha, Mary and Lazarus, and Martha gets steamed at Mary for leaving her to do all the serving by herself while Mary reclines at Jesus feet. Martha is upset enough that she even throws a little lip Jesus’ way (Luke 10:38-42). Sermons about the encounter typically conclude with “be a Mary, not a Martha”. Of course, such sermons are NEVER delivered on the same day that the church holds a potluck. No one gets served if everyone is a Mary.

The Greek word used to describe Martha’s serving is the same word used in Acts 6:1, when the apostles decided that serving food was a hassle and foisted the job off onto 7 deacons so they could focus on prayer and the word of God. Except for the Greek, one wouldn’t see the connection because the King James renders the word “serving” in the passage about Martha, and “ministration” in the passage about the apostles. I guess that means when women serve food, it’s service, but when the men do it, it’s ministry.

A discussion of daily devotion and prayer time featuring Karen Helser. The transcript for this episode can be found at RSS.com.

In the spring of 1966, the entire 4th grade class was marched to the gym where we were made to take a musical aptitude test. Other than listening to single notes played on a variety of instruments and answering whether or not they were the same, I remember little else about the test. Three weeks later, I came home from school and my parents greeted me saying “the school called.” Oh, how those words could make me sweat bullets and launch my suspicious mind into a frenzied inventory of excuses even before hearing the school’s complaint.

“Do you remember the music test you took?” my parents asked. “Uh, no” said I. Dad continued with a grin “it’s difficult to believe, I know, but the school says you have a talent for music.” My little mind did a Bat-Turn** trying to anticipate what was next. “The school wants you to play an instrument in the orchestra.” Ah, there it was – punishment – and I didn’t do nothing wrong. “But Dad! I want to play ball with my friends at recess, not play in some dumb orchestra!” In those days, the orchestra practiced during class lunch hour.

The Lord gave me a prophetic experience one spring that went a long way toward dealing with the guilt I’ve felt over NOT being successful in bringing change to the institutional church I attended for several years.

But first, I need to share a little background. I was born and raised in a suburb south of Seattle and lived there for 42 years before the Lord directed me to move to the rural Midwest. The good ol’ boys had themselves quite a time kidding me about being a city boy and I often joked about corn, bugs, stifling heat, and hog farms common to the area. I’ve written song parodies about farm life and sang them for the locals, along with the inspirational and worship music I write.

This episode is excerpted from the first short inspirational article I wrote, about the fall of 1999. I had forgotten about it until recently when the Father thought I needed encouragement and reminded me about it. The message is simply for the family of God in Christ who are down and discouraged by the evil goings on in the world today: WE WIN! I hope this blesses and encourages you as it has me.

When I was 14, I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior. Not long after, some of my new Christian friends introduced me to various beliefs about the Rapture of the Saints. That was the 1970’s, and Hal Lindsey’s book “The Late Great Planet Earth” was causing quite a stir, and prompted many rapture debates. I can remember one friend who asked me: “are you pre-, mid-, or post-trib, pre-, post-, or a-millennial”? Biblical scholar that I was then – after all I knew John 3:16 inside and out – I gave her my most profound answer: “Both!” and then I changed the subject. She was one of those Bible Baptist kids and us Presbyterians knew better than to engage one of them in a debate. Eventually, I adopted as my own the popular beliefs at the time. Certainly that was easier than searching for the answers myself.

When we moved to the Olympic Peninsula, we hoped to meet a few brothers and sisters in the Lord and decided to visit a small independent country church. Before going, we talked about our intents and purposes and resolved to keep mum about our history, gifts and callings. The very first service we attended, the new pastor was introduced and within 5 minutes of hearing him boast, I said to Karen “he will destroy the sweet fellowship here”. When the service was over, I chided him about a gross contradiction between his message and the men’s program he promoted. He threw his head back and laughed, dismissing what I said by the Spirit of Truth. In hindsight, that should have been our first and last visit, but we decided to check out the Bible study prayer group meeting the following Wednesday.

The leader was spirit filled and conducted the Bible study with learnedness and sensitivity for every person’s participation. Her devotion and preparedness was obvious and we regarded her a genuine sister. Midway, the study broke for refreshments, where my dear wife boasted to the woman who asked about us “my husband is a songwriter and worship leader”. “Ooooh!” said the woman as she rubbed her hands together “we’ll have to put him to work right away”. So much for keeping mum and avoiding church work.

(This post was originally published in April 2017) I’m not a fan of writings that for the most part seem assembled from the quotations of scholars, historians, and theologians, weaving them together like some great tapestry of spiritual enlightenment. To me, such writing seems oddly disconnected from the soul of the author which leaves me cold. I’d so much rather read a personal testimony from the author’s own life experience. What was your condition, how did the Son intervene, how were you healed or blessed, what did you learn? That’s what I want to know, for no derivative or commentary ever touched my heart like the open, honest, and vulnerable testimony of a brother or sister in the Son.

And yet, it was a daily devotional I receive by email that had me on the receiving end of the Lord’s chastisement several times during a health scare. Whoever is in charge of publishing excerpts from an author who died in 1971, had obviously been spying on me and selecting them with intent to hit me squarely between the eyes.

It first happened while lying on a gurney in the emergency room, strapped to an EKG monitor, and with an IV in each arm. I’m sorry, this is emotional. There I spoke frankly to Karen about the possibility of my death. She refused to hear it of course, admonishing me to speak faith but still I wanted her to know that I loved her and she was free to return to her family in Illinois, leaving the care of my elderly father who lived with us, to my siblings. Again, Karen spoke words of encouragement, even while I lamented the garden I’d started in faith but now could not finish because of the heart attack.