"Stuck in the Middle With You!"

"Clowns to the left,
Jokers to the right,
Here I am
Stuck in the middle with you!"

Interesting how the terms "Middle Ages" and "Dark Ages" are sometimes used interchangeably. It is also interesting how the most difficult years of childhood are called the "middle school years". Seems like all things associated with the middle can become fraught with disillusion.

You absolutely need friends to be stuck in the middle with.

Because in the middle, the very ones you thought would be there, won't be. The very ones you thought you could trust, will prove untrustworthy. Sometimes the ones you least expect become the clowns to the left, and the jokers to the right. It becomes important to be stuck in the middle with a few good friends.

The ones who send you flowers. Who slip cards in the mail. Who make sure you get a massage to ease the stress. Who lay hands on you and pray. Who write their prayers down, along with an encouraging word from the Lord. Who email you, to check up on how you are doing. Who are there if you need them, but understand if you aren't feeling very social. Who take you to funny movies. Who secretly imagine using Shakespearean insults on those who have mistreated you. And they tell you so, with a few dramatic monologues for your entertainment.

And you laugh until you can't breathe.

Those sorts of friends. You need them in the middle. You need the body of Christ.

Beef and Barley Soup in Twenty Minutes - a Pressure Cooker Recipe

Couldn't be any easier. Or yummier. First, gather your ingredients...



OOPS. My bad. I oh-so-innocently and accidentally posted a valentine from my friend Judah, declaring that I rule.



Well, in my own defense, I kinda do. Anyhow, gather your ingredients, for real this time...




You'll need: beef stock, between 1 and 2 pounds of beef (I use chuck eye, and cut it myself, because it is way cheaper that way) a half cup of barley, some mushrooms, carrots, celery, onion, garlic, a few bay leaves, some coarse salt, and some olive oil - the olive oil is more important than you know. I'll tell you why in a minute.

Rough cut and chop the obvious things.





Set your handy-dandy electric pressure cooker to "brown" mode. Drizzle some olive oil in the pot, and toss in the beef. Brown it. Then toss in absolutely everything else. (Oh, and as for the garlic - just mince as many cloves as you like. I think I did about four...)



Like I said, after browning your beef, just toss in everything else. Including your barley. Or, if you are gluten intolerant, this is where you want to substitute a half cup of short grain brown rice for the half cup of barley.



Here is where the olive oil is so important. Over and above the drizzle you used to brown your beef, add a tablespoon or so to the pressure cooker whenever you are pressure cooking grains or beans. It'll keep the grains or beans from foaming up quite so much, thereby causing your pressure cooker to clog and explode. 'Nuff said.


Next, set your pressure cooker to "high pressure", and program it for twenty minutes ~

Lock n' load. Push "start". Walk away. I'm not kidding. You can walk away from a pressure cooker, if you have an electric one! Not all technology is of the devil, people!

Let the pressure release naturally. If you are in a hurry, you can release it manually, but I like the little bit of extra time it takes to let the pressure go down on its own. I spend it doing this:

OOPS. My bad again. Another shameless grandbaby plug. Hey...it ain't braggin' when you're sporting a bed head.

Lastly, ladle some of this awesomeness into a pretty bowl and enjoy!

Jeremiah Was A Bailey...

Come with me, on a beautiful Saturday afternoon, to the baby shower of Kelly Bailey and her soon-t0-be-born Jeremiah...

Best buddies, Kelly, and Wendy from over at Hope Springs, who gave birth to her baby boy Ethan on the same day our grandson was born! Don't they both look fantastic?

The Reese Clan...from left to right, front, you see Meredith, Kelly, and Laura, in back, left to right, you see mamma Reese, Megan, Amy, Jamie, Angel, and Lisa. I think you can tell that they are all Saints fans. Ahem.

Jeremiah's baby blanket...

One of his gifts from me...Saints baby booties. I made 'em. I have mad skillz.

Good grief. That is all I can say. It was an act of love for a Colts fan such as myself to watch...

Whatever.

Mmmmm-hmmmmmm. We'll see. Pastor Tim might attempt to zealously affect baby Jeremiah into the Colts Camp.

At least I was generously given a corner piece.

These people are out of control.

Please. If you are a Colts fan, come join us at Harvest. The Saints are repopulating like crazy, and we Colts need to outnumber them.

::smile::

How To Be a Blessing To Your Pastor

Obey those who are in authority over you, and be submissive, for they watch out for your souls, as those who must give account. Let them do so with joy and not with grief, for that would be unprofitable for you. (Hebrews 13:17)

When our elders at Harvest Church were set in, two dear friends of ours, Neil Silverberg and Pete Beck were there to set them in with us. They both had weighty and wonderful things to say. One thing Neil said has lingered with me. He said, "You cannot disregard these leaders without doing damage to your own soul."

Obviously, that does not mean that Pastor Tim and our elders have a right to be authoritarian, and if you don't do exactly as they say, they will kick you to the curb. Men like that, insecure and law-oriented, are a dime a dozen, and shouldn't be made watchers-over-souls in the first place.

Neil meant that in the spirit, a pastor or elder has special authority.

There. I said it.

I know that is politically incorrect, but that is what the Bible says. I'll let you argue it out with God. You cannot act in a way that disregards authority, nor can you act in ways that bring grief or pain to the heart of those in authority, without sinning. And when you sin against a leader in these ways, you do damage to your soul.

You aren't punished for your sin...the punishment for sin was laid on Jesus Christ. You are, however, punished by your sin. Your sin will harden you, sear what soft places there may be left, and sit there accumulating and sowing to itself until it is dealt with. Gah. If that does not scare you, sin has already been hardening your heart. Your sinning against a leader does not affect your eternal destiny, but it sure will affect your days. And friend....days have a way of becoming years.

How do you bless a leader?

By not being a burden.

You thought I was going to say, "Make sure he is well taken care of." Yeah, the Bible does say that, especially those who labor in the Word, but that is a firm grasp of the obvious. You thought I might say, "Send him on a particularly wonderful vacation, all expenses paid." You thought I might say, "Take him out to dinner."

Nah. All you do to bless your pastor (or elders) is to not be a burden. Don't sin against your own soul by making his job more difficult. Rather, do everything in your power to make his job a joy. How can you do this?

Do your job. Do not do his job. Do not do the accountant's job. Do not do the elder's job. Do your job with excellence.

Stop whining. Stop questioning your pastor, coming and going. It does not validate your existence to do that. It will not create accountability between you and your pastor; rather it makes your pastor expect you to be the one to find fault. He'll overlook you for it, but is that really what you want?

Stop trying to make your hot button his hot button. His hot button has to be the gospel. Nothing but the gospel. Have I been clear enough? If your hot button is children's ministry, then get involved. If your hot button is prayer, then pray. If your hot button is missions, then give like crazy to your church's missionaries, and take a few trips yourself. If your hot button is the homeless, then go minister to them, and take a few church members with you.

Stop expecting a plug from the pulpit for your particular passion. If a pastor did that for every good thing, for every hot button, all he'd be doing is pushing buttons, regularly and randomly. That makes him the Great and Powerful Oz...but it will not make him an effective pastor. Let the man preach the gospel. Let him lead. You do whatever gift and passion and calling that blows your skirt up, without expecting the pastor to hold your hand.

I'll promise you, your pastor has a hot button. But if he is wise, he keeps it to himself, and refuses to create a "niche church" around his hot button. I know my Tim has several hot buttons, one of which is healthy marriages, home education, and yet more are hospitality and evangelism. He is strong in all those areas, and he has great passion for them, but he keeps himself to the gospel as it concerns leading Harvest Church. He sees his job as putting a foundation of grace under people, thus equipping the saints to pursue their hot buttons under the safety of oversight.

If your hot button is nursing home ministry, and you pursue that ministry with passion and purpose, then your church is a "nursing home ministry" church. If your hot button is missions, and you go on mission trips, and you support your church's missionaries, then your church is a "missions church". If your passion is worship, you can have a worship-oriented church even if you can't sing a lick. Make sure your worship leader has the best instrument he or she could use. Worship your butt off. Encourage the worship leader, and make your enjoyment of worship obvious. You'll have a "worshipping church" before you know it!

No one church can place an emphasis on everything. But you can emphasize what you are passionate about, with your life. I can't think of a more wonderful way to live.

One more thing...

Help take care of the building. Outdated fixtures and furnishings, overgrown grass, and general untidiness is one of the most off-putting things a visitor can encounter. They matter, more than most are willing to admit.

We don't think twice about making our own homes more welcoming. When our grass needs mowing, we either mow it ourselves or pay someone to do it. We don't think twice about tapping our home's equity to make improvements. We consider that a wise investment...yet we get queasy if the church sanctuary gets redecorated for the first time in ten years. We wonder where the money's coming from. Well, without good facilities, there soon won't be much money to worry about, frankly. That is just the reality of church in the 21st century. Get over it, and work with it.

Get on board with making your church building, its grounds, and its parking area to be the best, most useful it can be. Help with the grounds keeping, the care, the maintenance. Take as much pride in your church surroundings as you do your own home. It will be such a blessing to your pastor.

How to be a blessing? Just don't be a burden.

Grace - It's a Good Thing, Part II

Yes, in Galatians 4, Paul is basically saying, "What is good for the goose is good for the...other goose." Something like that. He says that the legalists "zealously affect you", but not for good. Not for a good reason, not with a right motive.

But, he says, it is good for the heart to be zealously affected in a good thing, always! Paul, a master of sarcasm, is doing a "back atcha, Pharisee". The more the pseudo law-lovers try to zealously affect God's people, the more Paul is going to zealously affect them.

It isn't a bad thing, at all, to be zealously affected. It isn't necessarily wrong for someone to try to zealously influence you. It depends on 1. What you are being affected for, or what you are being affected about, and 2. The motive of the person influencing you.

Paul's Great Goal was Grace. The legalists Great Goal was Performance.

And so it is today. The scary thing is, you do get to choose what you will be zealously affected by.

Reread Galatians, if you get the chance.

Grace...It's a Good Thing

Legalists "zealously affect you, but not well; yea, they would exclude you, that ye might affect them. But it is good to be zealously affected always in a good thing..."

The gist of this passage out of Galatians 4 is that self righteous people are always zealous and sincere, and their top priority is to influence you away from the gospel-preachers, to separate you from a gospel-centered church. The Message puts it this way:

"Those heretical teachers go to great lengths to flatter you, but their motives are rotten. They want to shut you out of the free world of God’s grace so that you will always depend on them for approval and direction, making them feel important."

You will be wined and dined, you will be invited to the parties, you will get the friend requests on Facebook, you will be the friend of the Pharisee, so long as you allow yourself to be affected by them. Because their goal is to separate you from the teachers they disagree with. They will flatter you with their friendship, but the motive is to "exclude you", which in the Greek means to separate you out for themselves. If you are in the grace-camp, a Pharisee will target you to hang with them, to make them feel validated and important. A Pharisee craves admiration like a pig craves the mud. They have to have followers, and they will look you up years later (lucky you!), they will call you with an invitation when they never even really liked you, all because they are searching near and far for yet another person to join them. And because they don't want you hanging out with the likes of Paul...

It's lonely at the top. These high achievers don't have the means for emotional continuity in friendship, because all us low achieving little people have such glaring flaws. No wonder we talk so much about grace, we need it...take one look at us and our children, after all. We haven't achieved much, other than a middle class income and true friendships. We drive cars that aren't new, and our goals don't go much beyond loving God and loving people. We got nothing to show for all this grace-talk other than righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.

A little law mighta' dun us good.

Ah, well. Legends in Their Own Minds always end up, in the words of Peter Pan to Captain Hook, "Old. Alone. Done for."

Give me the low place, any day. I will choose the least important seat. The one with all my rowdy friends close by. The seat with all those prodigal sons and daughters. I'll sit there, thankyouverymuch. Who knows? At the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, I just might be the one told, "Come up here and sit."

Wouldn't that be fine?

I agree with Paul - it is good to be zealously affected in a good thing. I do not plan on shutting up, not in this life, about the finished work of Christ. Gentle Reader, I am out to zealously affect you in a good thing...a very good thing. The Word of His Grace.

It will be good for you to be zealously affected. It will be health to your very bones.

Hold fast the pattern of sound words which you have heard from me, in faith and love which are in Christ Jesus.That good thing which was committed to you, keep by the Holy Spirit who dwells in us. (II Timothy 1: 13, 14)

White Bean Soup Tutorial

Gather your ingredients: white beans (I used the "quick soak" method - which is to bring your beans to a boil, let them boil for two minutes, then turn off the heat, cover them, and forget about them for an hour or so...) 2 stalks of celery, some onion, some garlic (I'm out of fresh, so I used the jar), some diced tomatoes, some tahini, barley, red wine vinegar, chicken broth, and fresh spinach.


sweat out the celery and onion in about a tablespoon of olive oil. Add the garlic after a minute or two, because you never. ever. want to burn the garlic. Amen.

Add the diced tomato...stir...enjoy the smells. Yum!

Add your white beans, broth, one tablespoon of tahini, a splash of red wine vinegar, two or three cups of water, and a half-cup of barley...cover and simmer on low heat for a couple of hours, while you play with this:

shameless grandbaby plug, I know.
(Actually, I didn't get to hold him hardly at all today.)

Just before serving, wilt as much spinach as you'd like. Season with coarse salt and fresh ground pepper.