A Life Shared

(Joshua Coyne, the son of Joe and Patty Coyne died Monday, February 9 after a very short and aggressive illness. Josh was a 17 years-old Down Syndrome young man. I had the privilege of leading the service and speaking at the Memorial Celebration for Josh.)

Psalm 42:1-11 (NIV)
My tears have been my food day and night, while men say to me all day long, “Where is your God?” ... Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? ... My soul is downcast within me ... Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.

Let me start off by saying from my perspective – This stinks!

When I received the call from Joe on Monday morning, I, like many of you, was shocked, saddened and – to be very frank – angry. This seemed unfair!

At that moment my perspective was that I could think of several people that I would rather have the Grim Reaper of death cast his shadow. I have pastored churches for nearly 30 years and, to be honest (and may God forgive me), there were a few parishioners’ names that quickly popped into my head, and of course there were a few names from my stint as the Mayor of Chugwater that came to mind as worthy of his visit (if you fall into one of those categories, sorry. I too know that I was not loved by all.)

From my perspective this stinks because our friends, Patty and Joe and the entire family are hurting, and that makes me uncomfortable. If you want to quickly get me squirming in my seat just start crying, because I am a fix-it guy and I have figured out there are certain things I cannot fix.

From my perspective this stinks because a “Celebration Service” is not high on my list of favorite activities. Let me assure you that right now I would not rather be anywhere else but right here for and with you, but a week ago I was not thinking that I was overdue for attending such an event.

From my perspective this stinks because I can’t help but think that Josh deserved a break. He was courageous and had undergone so many things related to his Down Syndrome and I think in the earthly world of fairness he deserved differently.

From your perspective you may be tempted to say to Patty or Joe, that they will someday have a sense of relief from the burden of caring for Josh and his disability, but let me warn you to keep that one to yourself, lest you unleash the furry of a family who’s love never saw this as burden, but so experienced the joy of caring for someone with special needs (as opposed to yours and my ordinary needs), that they adopted another special needs child, Daniel.

Yet there is another perspective besides mine and yours, and that would be God’s.

No one is a mistake or defective in the eyes of God.

Psalm 139:1-16 (NIV)
O LORD, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD. You hem me in—behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.

13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body.

All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

The presence of all or part of an extra 21st chromosome in Josh’s chromosomal make-up was not an oversight on God’s part. It was not an experiment gone awry. I believe that it was both intentional and purposeful. To be honest I cannot always understand why God does what he does, but in this case I can clearly see the results of God’s working, more about that in a minute.


All of our days are ordained by God

Each of us has a purpose in God’s plan, a plan that is worked out from before birth right up to the day of our death. In his book, Crazy Love, Francis Chan likens life to the roles in a movie. In life’s movie God is the main actor, He has the lead role. Other actors have parts to play with varying degree of notoriety, but each is a part of the big picture. Yours and my problem is that we sometimes get the perspective that this movie is about us.

I am confident that as Josh entered into the presence of God, the words of God spoken to the faithful stewards were some of the first words that Josh heard spoken to him, “Well done though good and faithful servant. You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!”

Before we build Josh into Sainthood, let me remind you that he had the abilities to manipulate, irritate, and frustrate. And he was able to do all of that sometimes with a twinkle in his eye and grin on his face.

From God’s perspective Josh was one of the great teachers of all time

Patty, Joe and the family have had the privilege of learning from Josh how to love as God loves. A great teacher is one that impacts not just the head knowledge, but also the life of his students. Josh challenged or discipled those he came in contact with in the art of a 1 Corinthians 13 love:

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8 Love never fails. …

13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 (NIV)

Most of us are in remedial love and we keep getting held back for lack of proficiency. But the great Master teacher sent you a tutor, JOSH – and you are better for that.

Josh has now graduated to the ultimate expression of love as he abides in the arms of Jesus.

All of his physical and mental limitations are gone. Jesus and he can now discuss nuclear fusion if they want, but I doubt that is the topic of discussion.

I imagine Josh experiencing one of the biggest and longest hugs of His life, and his asking Jesus, what are the secret 11 herbs and spices that make up the KFC original recipe? And, “Can we eat now?”

Preach the Word

Paul warned his ministry companions of impending change. Listen to his words of warning and see if you can identify the days of which he speaks. Paul told Timothy in 2 Timothy 4:3-4: For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.

A time was coming, it had not yet arrived, but it was coming. History would bear out that there have been many such times of change in the church such as the one that Paul was going to describe. I remember in my fundamentalist days – uh oh, now you know that I am one of those guys – but I remember this warning going forth from the pulpit quite regularly.

What would be characteristic of these coming days? It was that people would not put up with, endure or embrace sound doctrine. Instead they would go shopping for truth. In a true 21st century consumer mentality they would seek to suit their own desires, they would look for those who would scratch where they were itching, ultimately willing to sell their souls for made up stories, myths.

Using a very broad brush let me make a few observations from Paul’s letter to Timothy.

First, Change is Inevitable. The world in which we live is in a continual flux. The reality is that it has always been changing, it is nothing new. The only difference is the scope and speed of change. It amazes me that throughout the years the church has developed ministries to address the changing needs of society, like Sunday School or MOP’s or a multitude of other ministries; yet once they are established they quickly become inflexible institutional programs. One of the goals of the RMCBA is to help churches and their leadership understand the days in which God has placed them and develop effective ways of impacting their communities for Christ.

The next thing we need to understand is that Leadership Development is Essential. Paul’s letters to Timothy and Titus emphasize the importance of leadership development, giving us examples of the coaching/mentoring relationship. Paul was following the example of Jesus and His investment in future leaders. The RMCBA is exploring a partnership with Christian Leadership Institute (www.christianleadershipinst.org) under the leadership of Michael Sabo (currently serving as Transitional Pastor at Grace Church of Greeley, CO). CLI, in partnership with Denver Seminary, is a non-traditional alternative to Seminary training. Their mission statement is: “To collectively unite the training strengths of seminaries, local churches and parachurch ministries resulting in the holistic development of godly leaders.” Imagine this – “developing Christian Leaders who have a strong love for God, a growing godly character and a high level of Biblical and ministry competence” within the context of the local church at a fraction of the cost of Seminary. You will be hearing more about this unique opportunity in the days to come.

The last thing that I would emphasize from this passage is that Biblical Core Values are Foundational. Paul’s advice to Timothy in view of the shifting society was to Preach the Word. Unfortunately we instantly translate those words into our 20th century institutional mindset of Sunday morning worship service – an evangelical/attractional model. But I believe the context indicates an evangelical/missional model. Timothy was to do this in his calling and gifting as a evangelist. People will forever be saved the same way – there is no other way. It is the Holy Spirit acting on the heart of an individual hearing the proclamation of the Good News of Jesus Christ. The context of the Gospel will always be relational as opposed to institutional. For a long time our culture embraced relationally the institutional church. That has been changing for the last many decades with the church often choosing the response of denial.

The Great Commission, making disciples of Jesus Christ, is our mission, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is our message, doing it in the context of relationship is the method. How to do this in the context of our changing world? - now that is the mystery.

Garage Sale

Recently our home owner's association sponsored a community Garage Sale. Since one bay of my garage has been dedicated to the collection of notorious, "One of these days we are going to have Garage Sale" items, this became the impetus to our actually ridding ourselves of these family heirlooms and adding cash to our children's future inheritance (Note to children your inheritance now totals $207 split three ways, oh, wait we went to Starbucks, it is now substantially less than that).

The thing that amazed me was that people would actually pay me to take stuff that should have actually been tossed away years ago. Most people did not realize that by 1:00 p.m. I was ready to give stuff away. One of the last things to go was my parent’s old dresser and bed tables, which they probably paid $500 or more for thirty years ago. I sold it for $15.00, and if truth were told, I would have paid the lady $25.00 just so I wouldn't have to move it back into my garage. You see we did not have a garage sale to make a lot of money (as you can tell we were not disappointed). We did it to get rid of stuff that we could not bring ourselves to throw away.

It struck me in the midst of this Garage Sale experience that in a consumer culture where things are everything, that things are really nothing. We have so much that we find it extremely difficult to assess what really has value. It didn't help matters that at about this time I was reading in Alan Hirsch's, The Forgotten Ways. He worte the following:

"I have come to the conclusion that for we who live in the Western World, the major challenge to the viability of Christianity is not Buddhism, with all its philosophical appeal to the Western mind, nor is it Islam, with all the challenge that it poses to Western culture. It is not the New Age that poses such a threat; in fact , because there is a genuine search going on in new religious movements, it can actually be an asset to we who are willing to share the faith amidst the search. All of these are challenges to us, no doubt, but I have come to believe that the major threat to the viability of our faith is that of consumerism. This is a far more heinous and insidious challenge to the gospel, because in so many ways it infects each and every one of us." Alan Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways, (Grand Rapids, Bazos Press, 2006) , p. 106 (emphasis mine)

Arrgh! I to, am infected. I would like to say that this sale was a tangible demonstration of a penitent heart, but it wasn’t. And please don’t tell my children, but I spent the vast proceeds on plants for my backyard (The good news is that that by the end of summer all evidence of my squandering their future will probably be dead or indistinguishable from the overgrowth).

Consumerism is epidemic in our Christian culture. The symptoms of our malady pour over into the church, where it is seen in the architecture and décor of our facilities. But an even more insidious indication is the invasion of this consumerism in our thinking as demonstrated in our talk. It is heard in the critique of the message – even the positive comments - or the assessment of the music – good or bad. Listen to others, or more importantly listen to yourself. It is the talk, the language, of a consumer. The last thing Jesus was is a consumer. In fact His life is the antithesis of consumerism.

Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Ephesians 5:1-2 (NIV)

My problem is that as a consumer it is all about me, rather than about the things of God. It is what I like or dislike, it is about what I value … or about what I want to put in my next Garage Sale.

Worth A Look! - #1 The Beginning

In my work I often run across things that I think others – like you - might find interesting. Personally there is a lot of stuff that people forward to me that I never read (pictures of cute kids and animals; animated graphics, poetry, and synthesized music playing in the background; jokes) and typically end up in my virtual trash can. If I get enough of them from any one individual I mark their email address as Junk E-mail, which means I never look at it – at all! Well I don’t want my email address marked as a purveyor of Junk E-mails in your mailbox, so if you don’t want things like this sent to you then just reply with the word REMOVE and I will do it. (This was sent earlier as an email)

I receive quite a few email newsletters here is link to one from Christianity Today that is Worth a Look! - Going Native By Alex McManus

I am currently reading The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church by Alan Hirsch – definitely Worth a Look! If you read it I would be interested in hearing from you.

Another book Worth a Read is Stephen Covey’s book, The Speed of Trust: The One Thing that Changes Everything. Thanks Mark Hanke for recommending it.

Again I would appreciate any feed back.

Blessings,

Stan Rieb