Sturtz Stuff

I believe that being a local church minister is, hands down, one of the most complex, stressful, joyful, and totally bonkers positions one can hold. There is no educational degree that one can undertake to be considered fully prepared for ministry.  The late Eugene H. Peterson in his book The Pastor: A Memoir says “A job is an assignment to do work that can be quantified and evaluated. It is pretty easy to decide whether a job has been completed or not. It is pretty easy to tell whether a job is done well or badly. But a vocation is not a job in that sense. I can be hired to do a job, paid a fair wage if I do it, dismissed if I don't. But I can't be hired to be a pastor, for my primary responsibility is not to the people I serve but to the God I serve.” I think that most folks in church ministry would agree with Mr. Peterson’s sentiment. Folks often go into church ministry seeking to follow God and make a difference in the lives of others. At the same time there have been many...

     I believe that marriage, especially Christian marriage, should turn you into the person that you otherwise never would have been. Paul writes in Philippians 2:5 “In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!”       A host of scholarly papers, commentaries and Sunday messages have covered Philippians 2:5 thoroughly. Whatever one might say about this passage one thing is for sure, Paul is offering a statement on how Jesus wants things to happen. What does Jesus want? According to Paul, Jesus would really like it if we didn’t take advantage of one another. Instead, Jesus would really like it if we wer...

Outside it was a hot day. I don’t really enjoy hot days. I like fall weather. My alabaster white skin just burns to a crisp on hot sunny days. Inside there was a lot of emotional uncomfortableness. I don’t really like emotional uncomfortableness either. It has taken some learning and practice to become better able to remain in the midst of emotional uncomfortableness without feeling the need to resolve things. Yet this story comes from a time when I had not learned healthy coping skills, personal boundaries and the ingredients to a healthy marriage. Perhaps you have heard the saying “If momma ain’t happy, then nobody is happy.” Well in my case when momma (ex-wife) wasn’t happy I took on the responsibility to fix the situation. And there were a lot of times momma wasn’t happy. She told me her unhappiness was often tied to her self diagnosed OCD. Whatever the case I had put myself in the position of attempting to maintain homeostasis in the household. When there was conflict I attempted ...

Franklin's kite-lightning experiment changed things as we have seen over the last two posts. What I would like to offer here are some possible implications for those people who are followers of Jesus or a church leader. Perhaps by looking at this past event we might discover some lessons for our current cultural moment.  What does this make possible? That is a question that often goes unasked and thus unexplored. Yet we have heard stories that illustrate the asking of this question. We have heard stories about people who have overcome all kinds of physical and mental challenges. Often because they explored what was possible. If their legs did not work, they explored the use of their arms. If their eyes did not work, they examined the use of their hands and ears. When people have experienced failures in life many found new life in exploring what opportunities that failure created. Perhaps a chance to start over. Maybe it gave them a renewed sense of purpose. It alerted them to a met...

If you remember the story of Ben Franklin and his lightning experiment, do you remember the part about protracted theological objections? Me either.  Benjamin Franklin was many things during his lifetime. Among other things he was a scientist, writer, inventor and diplomat. He was also a slave owner and a founding father of America. Around the month of June in 1752 Franklin launched a kite into some storm clouds and made history. Will either he did or someone else did. Franklin was well known for his meticulous notes on each experiment that he performed. Interestingly, Franklin seems to have never made any notes about the kite-lightning experiment.1 So who knows. Prior to his kite-lightning experiment, Franklin had done considerable work attempting to understand electricity. In fact Franklin had achieved a kind of popular notoriety among his scientific contemporaries that he was perhaps the Galileo or Newton of his time. Our modern understanding of electricity and lightning are gre...

A lot of people have stories about horrible jobs. Gross tasks, appalling bosses, crazy co-workers. As ridiculous as some job tasks can be, none of us would have wanted to be a church bell ringer in the Middle Ages. Why? Being a church bell ringer in the Middle Ages could get you killed. Before the time of the Enlightenment (17th-18th century), people lived in a world that we would consider enchanted. People lived in a world that we modern folks would consider magical and backward thinking. Before the Enlightenment, things that we might give a scientific explanation for were often chalked up to some movement of unseen evil spirits or deities. Before the 17th and 18th centuries witch, demon, gnome, mermaid, and hobgoblin myths were familiar to people of all ages and classes. Widespread were reports that the devil entered into an animal or even a person. People thought devils were everywhere: in houses, in fields, on the streets, in the water, in forests, and in fires. The same was true f...

The home that I grew up in was at the top of a hill. A fairly steep hill at that. That same hill is where I learned to drive a 5-speed. My Father owned a small sized pickup truck called an Isuzu P'up. Just a bit smaller than a Ford S-10. The truck had manual steering as well as transmission. As soon as I had my learner’s permit my dad put me behind the wheel of his truck.  While driving with my Dad we were going up the steep hill that we lived on. About halfway up the hill my Dad told me to stop. He then told me to put the truck in first gear and to set the hand emergency brake. That way I could take my foot off the brake and only mess with the gas and clutch pedals. He told me that I needed to learn to start on a hill. Well I freaked out and stalled out a lot. Like a lot of times. Like a lot, a lot of times. Eventually we made it home which was only about 50 yards away!  Among the things learned that day was that often you and I have all the resources we need to solve our pro...