Sturtz Stuff

 I grew up going to church. That is not the experience of everyone. I have also learned that growing up going to church doesn’t make me better than anyone. Yet growing up there was never a question about where my family would be and what we would be doing on Sunday mornings. Unless I had a fever you would find me at church. Growing up in and around church I have been to plenty of VBS programs, youth conferences and Sunday morning services. I have enjoyed my fair share of church potluck dinners, Christmas eve services and listened to some wonder messages from the Bible. While I believe that the church is the continuation of Jesus’ ministry the church also involves human beings. Anything that involves human beings has the sad tendency to do harm while thinking they are doing good. I was told as a kid/teen that the church/Christians were supposed to be different then the world/culture. What I have come to discover is that often the church and Christians are truly not that different...

Your twenty-year-old self can look back at your fifteen-year-old self and think . . . what an idiot! You were worried about all the wrong things and an overall jerk. And your twenty-five-year-old self can look back on your twenty-year-old self and think . . . what an idiot! You were worried about all the wrong things and an over all jerk. And so on and so on to where you are now. Point is we’re all idiots! Worried about all the wrong things and kind of an overall jerk. This couldn’t be truer when it comes to how a large amount of people view the church in America. Don’t get me wrong there are thousands of stories of how churches and individual Christians have done great things for their communities and lives have been changed. At the same time there are way too many stories of how churches and individual Christians have often been worried about the wrong things and were kind of an overall jerk. Being a follower of Jesus means admitting that you and I are in the position of a lear...

My Dad had some quirky sayings that he was known for. One of them was “Well, what did ya learn?” He typically said that after I did something that was way south of smart. Like attempting, at age 10, to play in the family car . . . and taking it out of park . . . and the car rolling down the driveway into some healthy sized holly bushes. If it were not for the holly bushes the car would have rolled right into the side of our neighbor’s home. And did I mention that my little sister was in the backseat. You might imagine my parent’s reaction and part of it included my Dad asking, “Well, what did ya learn?” I would like to think that I have learned a lot from the mistakes that I have made in life. Maybe. Sometimes. What I am wondering, at this particular moment, as I look back over the past year, is “Well, what did ya learn?”. The year 2020 will go down as one of, it not the, worst year ever. I suppose that is saying a lot considering that people lived through feudalism, the Black Plague...