The End of Pastor Appreciation Month

Kopp Disclosure

(John 3:19-21)

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    Kevin Spacey is gay.

    Didn't see that coming.

    Gaydar.

    October is Pastor Appreciation Month.

    While the officers and staff along with a few members of our family of faith on the corner of Lincoln and Main in Belvidere, Illinois go out of their way to care for me in so many ways, I feel a little guilty about it because I counsel and care for many faithful pastors who aren't as blessed.

    Lots of churches don't see PAM coming.

    Laydar.

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    Illustration.

    A pastor in Michigan just resigned after less than six months because the fix was in before he arrived.

    He followed a fine senior pastor who had been in the church for decades - tough enough - and inherited an associate pastor who had applied for the job - worse - and has been lying in wait to pounce on any vulnerability to undermine, overcome, and satisfy ecclesiastical lust.

    The AP succeeded for two reasons.

    First, the new senior pastor sinned; and while the prurient think immediately of sex and money, it's what our RCC friends call venial.  Moreover, the denominational judicatory - proving again that one should think twice or more about leaving one stinking denomination for another stinking denomination even if they like Jesus by the book a lot more on paper while abandoning Him when the rubber hits the road - totally ignored Matthew 18 and Galatians 6.  In other words, the poster children of their much-better-and-faithful-than-the-PCUSA denomination provided no process for restoration via forgiveness precipitated by confession and repentance in total ignorance/defiance of Matthew 6:12, 14-15; 7:1-6 and 1 John 1:5-10 juxtaposed to Matthew 25:45-46.

    How wearisome to hear story after story after story of these self-righteous-Sister-Bertha-better-than-you-we-don't-dance-and-we-don't-chew-and-we-don't-go-with-girls-who-do denominations that don't walk their talk when it interferes with their discriminations, segregations, and degradations.

    Second, the associate aspiring to the senior position recruited another staff member under his supervision to lead the charge.

    Job security, I guess.

    Anyway, the surrogate fired the bullet made by the associate that murdered the ministry.

    Adding insult to injury, the surrogate contacted the deposed the day before the official resignation and wanted to meet for reasons that elude me; prompting me to suggest the following response: "Colleague, as I have confessed my sin to all and continue a process of repentance with humble gratitude for those who require discipline for restoration as patterned by Jesus and Holy Scripture, I don't think it is helpful for me and anyone entrusted to your employment to meet with someone who says, 'I can never forgive you for this!' Talking with pastors, seminary professors, elders, and deacons around the country as well as locally, they say there is only one unforgivable sin.  They suggest it is time for you to be held accountable for your unbelief.  If you would like me to help you, yes, we can get together."

    Sadly, I recall something said to me by an antagonist about 40 years ago: "Preachers come and go but we stay the same."

    True.

    Too bad more pastors aren't told...that's coming.

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    As pour moi, I'm blessed with a faithful which includes forgiving church.

    Besides, I've got enough pension credits built up so I could just...

    Won't.

    Called.

    So after being appreciated again in October, I wrote a letter to our officers, staff, and members.

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Dear Elders, Staff, and PoDs,

Consulting with many churches and caring for so many pastors who are confused, abused, and vocationally precarious, I always thank God for the privilege to be your undershepherd to the Good Shepherd in the spirit of Matthew 10:16.

While every day isn't a hot fudge sundae and the demands seem to be escalating almost exponentially in our family of faith and neighborhood not to mention the extended regional and national family, I find relaxation and refueling in cellular prayer, corporate worship, pony, truck, playing 9 with Billy, Cubans, and calmer times at home; so your gift certificate to Woodstock Harley-Davidson expresses your sympathy for my idiosyncrasies and stewardship of my head, heart, and guts.

On the night before he was assassinated - which I mention not to encourage folks who hate me in a Christian kinda way - MLK, Jr., said, "Well, I don't know what will happen now.  We've got some difficult days ahead.  But it doesn't matter with me now.  Because I've been to the mountaintop.  And I don't mind.  Like anybody, I would like to live a long life...But I'm not concerned about that now.  I just want to do God's will.  And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain.  And I've looked over.  And I've seen the promised land.  I may not get there with you.  But I want you to know...I'm not worried about anything.  I'm not fearing any man.  Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord."

As MLK, Jr. would say, I have the "strength to love" you and everyone else from Him through you.

But there are difficult days ahead.

While the house has been cleaned far more than less (Matthew 12:43-45), we still have some significant challenges ahead of us:

1. Longing for the way things never were or maybe were but are no more is unfaithful yet seductive.  Aside from the fresh blessings requiring new wineskins in ministry (Matthew 9:15-17) because God is alive and well among the two or three or more who truly gather in His name, finances will continue to dry up as demonic, dark, and sometimes even innocuous distractions/seductions inhibit, blur, and betray fidelities.  In other words, we will be expected to do more to help heal emotionally, intellectually, spiritually, and materially with less;

2. My parochial and ecumenical experiences coupled with a compelling witness captive to John 17 and other supporting counsel/commands from Jesus by the book have convinced me of the folly of leaving one stinking denomination for another stinking denomination as some appear more faithful on paper while all fall within the verdict of the apostle in Romans 3:23.  Moretheless, I applaud our leadership for taking the steps necessary to insure our passion to esteem over 2K years of Biblical, confessional, constitutional, historical, traditional, and common sense Christianity is not compromised by possible mandates moving our voluntary apportionments, gifts, and donations to mandatory taxation and insisting we endorse and host rituals+ceremonies=rites requiring the violation of our collective conscience captive to over 2K years of...

While I will never leave the PCUSA as I have spoken and written for over three decades after praying about it for another decade before providing a paper trail of my devotion to remain faithfully while always eager to confess, repent, ask forgiveness, and seek restoration if shown error by Jesus, Holy Scripture, and common sense, I could be thrown out if the aforementioned are mandated by GA or PJC.  Following the crucified Christ, all of my heroes have chosen to remain faithfully.  Surely, it would be easier to "go with the flow" or "run away from a fire rather than into it" or some other meaningful metaphor.  Yet,  I've always chosen the road less traveled because I believe that's the best way to follow Him; and

3. While I'll never be as astute as Don Norek when it comes to eschatology, I believe we are in the last days and tribulating times will increase around the globe and in America.  Welcoming the ultimate victory of our Lord Jesus, we will live triumphantly amid the meanness, madness, misery, and miscreance of these days as we witness to confident living in the assurance of eternal paradise by grace through faith in Jesus and do all we can whenever we can with all we can to extend agape through grace and mercy without regard to color, class, or culture.

So, again, thank you for remembering me during Pastor Appreciation Month as we pray and labor to show our undivided loyalty to Jesus as Lord and Savior.

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Blessings and Love!

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Shatter the sound of silence!

Salt!  Shine!  Leavenate!

Wake up!  Look up!  Stand up!  Speak up!  Act up for Jesus!

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Grace Blanchard's SOS

Kopp Disclosure

(John 3:19-21)

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Grace Blanchard’s SOS

          Elmer Homrighausen – How’s that for a professor’s name? – said one of the few things in a liturgics and homiletics class that I still recall: “When you get up there, deliver the turkey!  Don’t pluck it in front of them!”

          Anyway, I also remember Sunday School with Miss Grace Blanchard of the Forty Fort United Presbyterian Church that remains across the Susquehanna River from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.

          Unlike today’s Boy Scouts of America, she believed girls and boys need same-gender academic, athletic, recreational, and relational opportunities because any ___ fool can see the genders don’t learn, grow, interact, mature, and all of the rest in exactly the same ways.

          Yeah, I know today’s social engineers want to eliminate gender distinctions; but that ain’t the divine design.

          While value equality is common knowledge/wisdom, so is functional diversity; or as I often say to my sons, “Your mom is a much better mother than I can ever be and I’m a much better father than she can ever be.”

          As Miss Blanchard would say when challenged by folks who wanted their daughters in her class instead of ___’s, “God made ‘em male and female.  They’ll have plenty of time to get together after we teach the basics to ‘em.”

          Parenthetically, she taught Sunday School until she was 104; which is one of the reasons why retirement has never been on my radar.  Just like Ben Franklin, Don Lyon, and many others truly called to their vocations, we don’t quit if we’re called unless we’re no longer emotionally, intellectually, spiritually, or physically capable…or…we’re called to something else…or…we want to quit because we were never really called to it in the first place which is why we wanna quit.

          Getting back to our Sunday School class, Miss Blanchard would say about once a month, “O.K., boys, today is SOS Sunday!  Same old stuff!”

          Then we’d have a Q&A for an hour or so on Bible facts, figures, and faith.

          BTW, no one ever came late because she taught us that it’s not rude to be on time for the privilege of worship and Christian education.

          Here’s an abbreviated summary of SOS Sunday with Miss Blanchard.

          GB: “How do you get to heaven, boys?”

          Boys: “By grace through faith in Jesus!”

          GB: “What does it say in the Bible?”

          We’d recite John 1:12-13, 3:16-17, 5:24, 20:31, Romans 10:9, and Ephesians 2:8-9.

          GB: “How do I know you’re going to heaven, boys?”

          Boys: “We walk the talk, Miss Blanchard!”

          GB: “What does it say in the Bible?”

          We’d recite Matthew 10:32-33, 25:45-46, John 13:34-35, and Galatians 5:22-23.

          GB: “How do you thank God for forgiving your sins so you can go to heaven?”

          Boys: “We forgive because we’ve been forgiven.”

          GB: “What does it say in the Bible?”

          We’d recite Matthew 6:12, 14-15 and 7:1-2.

          If you’re like me, I think Miss Blanchard’s SOS Sunday needs to be resurrected.

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Blessings and Love!

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Shatter the sound of silence!

Wake up!  Look up!  Stand up!  Speak up!  Act up for Jesus!

Salt!  Shine!  Leavenate!

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The Mercy Papers 9

Kopp Disclosure

(John 3:10-21)

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Reclaim the Bow

Discovering Original Mercy

Copyright Reserved, 2017

The Mercy Papers (9)

    I haven't been in a fighting mood since God healed me of that during a week with Eugene in Montana back in October 2011.

    It's nothing that he said; but what He did through the aura of his confession, conduct, and countenance.

    Anyway, while a fighting mood may have been exorcised by grace through faith in Him through him, I have become far more fierce when it comes to undershepherding's responsibility to protect the sheep from predators in a Matthew 10:16 kinda way.

    Sooooo though I want to be liked like most folks, His call to love exceeds my need to be liked. 

    Sooooo though I would rather sit back and not get involved as clergy, mainline/sideline/out-of-bounds denominations, and other spiritual miscreants insult God's holiness by ignoring, defying, and otherwise raising a middle finger and thumbed nose to over 2K years of Biblical, confessional, constitutional, historical, traditional, and common sense Christianity with such unseemly shamelessness and arrogance - "We know that's what God says in Jesus and the Bible but we think..." - I'm mindful of eternal grace and existential serenity juxtaposed to His promises and cautions about that kinda stuff and can't help myself from salting, shining, leavenating, and shattering the sound of silence.

    Sooooo though I would rather go with the flow of the antitheses of faith expressing itself through love generating grace and mercy so evident in church as well as society when it comes to so little forgiveness and restoration through confession and repentance, I can't help but calling out the posers of Christianity who don't forgive and restore after confession and repentance and make faith expressed through agape generating grace and mercy as common as Hillary and Donald sitting around a campfire singing Kumbaya, My Lord.

    Sooooo though people shout their appreciation of me being "fair" as long as I take their side(s) on anything while whispering they really don't want me to be "fair" if it conflicts with their discriminations, segregations, degradations, and idolatries, I'm not interested in any other side(s) than His; always being eager to be corrected by Jesus, Holy Scripture, and common sense if my "truth" isn't His.

    Sooooo I'm prepared to challenge anyone who says pro-lifers are haters.  Really.  Are you trying to tell me/anyone/Him that protecting life from womb to tomb is hate but sucking life out of the womb or pulling the plug in the nursing home is love?  Really.

    Sooooo I'm prepared to remind intellectually dishonest ideologues of darkness that exceptions to the rule are called exceptions to the rule because they occur so infrequently and justifiably that they are called exceptions to the rule.

    Sooooo though I will never leave my particularly imperfect denomination increasingly irretrievably apostate under current management for rationale repeated ad nauseum in several publications and websites  for decades with the understanding that I can't convince denominational schismatics or institutional idolaters to my point of view which is why I've stopped trying, I'm taking every opportunity to protect our particular remnantal congregation from paying taxes to anyone who violates their collective conscience captive to over 2K years of Biblical, confessional, constitutional, historical, traditional, and common sense Christianity or pledging compliance to performing rituals+ceremonies=rites violating their collective conscience captive to over...

    In the spirit of kerygma, I don't fight about that kinda stuff anymore. 

    Again, while always eager to be corrected by Jesus, Holy Scripture, and common sense so I may confess, repent, and then experience forgiveness and restoration, I proclaim Word without trying to prove Word, declare Word without wasting time debating Word, and announce Word without arguing Word.

    Unlike some pulpiteers, professors, pewsitters, and other professional religionists and navel-gazing idolaters, I just don't feel big enough to tell God that I know more than He has revealed in Jesus by the book.

    Finally, after all of these years, someone from my past, a priest who studied with me for one of my worthless degrees, came back into my life after 35 years and confirmed my quest to reclaim the bow and discover original mercy.

    If you don't get it/him/Him, I'll understand.

    I've understood a lot more since October 2011.

    Here goes...

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Dr. Bob,

When I received your email, I was moved to tears. There are few in ministry, who after hearing my story, want to get near or correspond with me. Having read your comments on ___ in your works and you knowing about my...[sin and incarceration]..., I was not sure how you would respond or if you would respond. Yet, like the man I came to know over that two year period of time so many years ago, you were true to your spirit and did respond with understanding, acceptance and encouragement.

Monday, I go in for my hip replacement; and so the necessity of me writing to you this day. I know that, for a time, I will not be sitting here at the desk or computer even if all goes OK. It was important for me to acknowledge what you wrote and shared with the hope that we continue on this path; not only be email but phone as well. My traveling days are pretty much over. The MS makes it difficult for me so it is just better not going through the pressure of travel these days.

Hope you have been able to look over some of the books that I sent. The___was the first with the publisher and I did not understand how publishers worked or what they expected. As a result, the layout, misspellings, etc. went uncorrected. By book two and three, I got better at watching what they were sending and making the corrections. Although we may see some of the topics from a different perspective, I love criticism and dialogue and wait to hear yours.

Your hunch of progress spiritually, intellectually, and as a writer now and beyond was correct.

It is interesting that even after these many years you read me well, understand Jesus-filled love more than most in our vocation, and speak the truth, whether convenient or inconvenient

Love, brother,

John

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Blessings and Love!

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Shatter the sound of silence!

Wake up!  Look up!  Stand up!  Speak up!  Act up for Jesus!

Salt!  Shine!  Leavenate!

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The Mercy Papers 8

Kopp Disclosure

(John 3:19-21)

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Reclaim the Bow

Discovering Original Mercy

Copyright Reserved, 2017

The Mercy Papers (8)

Coupled with worship which is the only indispensable activity of people who honor God as Source, Starter, Sovereign, and Savior, discovering and extending original grace and mercy is the best way to love like God to love Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Blessing Him thusly yields personal and corporate benefits.

Jesus: “The mercy you give to others will be the mercy you get from God…If you forgive others, you will be forgiven by God.”

The corollary is damning.

Existential heavenliness and hellishness have eternal consequences.

While predestination yields to the ultimate sovereignty of God judging eternal destiny, volition is emphasized with greater frequency by Jesus and throughout Holy Scripture.

The paradox is comforting.

No one can defer, deter, or detour God’s saving sovereignty.

God wins sooner or later, usually sooner than later, and definitely in the end.

It’s predestined.

Choice or the decision to receive Jesus into the head, heart, and gut as Lord and Savior or not  is the responsibility of all who have heard His inclusive call to existential confidence in the assurance of eternal life by grace through faith in Jesus.

Succinctly, we are predestined by God yet must choose between God and idolatries.

Rather than deepening intellectual befuddlement, knowledge of God’s predestination and our volitional responsibility generates strong calm sanity in knowing, again, no one can defer, deter, or detour God’s saving sovereignty regardless of confirmed or contradicted choice.

Because predestination is God’s prerogative, we concentrate on personal volitional responsibility as we praise God for His unalterably predestined ultimate victory shared by grace through faith in Jesus.

Candidly, that paradox is embraced in enthusiastic esteem for God while acknowledging God as divine is more than we as human can comprehend.

Simply, God is God and we are not.

Part of honoring God for sharing ultimate heavenly victory and existential confidence in the meantime is loving Him by loving like Him with agape through grace and mercy.

A mentor once explained: “If you are holding back from God in any part of your life, you will not experience His full pleasure until you yield to God in every part of your life that you are holding back from Him.”

Then he would say, “I want you to take a moment and identify every part of your life that you are holding back from God.”

Finally, he challenged, “Until you yield/surrender those parts of your life to God, you will not experience His full pleasure.  Now you know why you are not filled completely with joy, peace, and calm.  You can never be completely whole and happy until you are completely His.  Now you know the antidote for what is ailing you.  As long as you are holding back any part of your life from God, you will not experience His full pleasure.”

Yes, we are saved for eternal paradise by grace through faith in Jesus; and we can experience more and more and more of His goodness/pleasure in time by yielding/surrendering more and more and more of our affections, aspirations, and actions to His prescribed will for our lives in Jesus by the book.

Among the hardest parts of our lives to yield/surrender to God is our stubborn resistance even disinterest in forgiveness.

Unlike God, we hold so tenaciously, furiously, and self-destructively to our angers, resentments, and retaliatory lusts.

Getting even, getting over, and getting away rebel against His call to get along, overcome, and reconcile through Him.

Hence, our lives are dominated by dysfunction, distance, divorce, and relational death in time with the warning of eternal consequences from God for our irregular, irascible and irreconcilable instincts enabled by emotional and intellectual rationalizations.

Again, we can be healed by discovering agape and expressing it/Him through grace and mercy: “The mercy you give to others will be the mercy you get from God…If you forgive others, you will be forgiven by God.”

Amending the aforementioned mentor’s counsel, “If you are holding back forgiveness from anyone, you will not experience God’s forgiveness.  I want you to take a moment and think of anyone that you have not forgiven.  Now you know why you are not experiencing the joy, peace, calm, and eternal security of God’s forgiveness.  Now you know the antidote for what’s ailing you.”

Sage in Stephen Schwartz’s Pippin: “God’s wisdom teaches me…when I help others, I’m really helping myself.”

It/He happens when we reclaim the bow by discovering original mercy.

Evolutionary Updates

TMP (8) contributors are B&B.

Tax-deductible donations to support the movement’s initiatives to attract inquiry can be made by sending checks to The Grove (4210 Countryside Estates, Poplar Grove, Illinois 61065) or First Presbyterian Church (221 N. Main Street, Belvidere, Illinois 61008) and writing “Reclaim the Bow” in the memo.  

We encourage you to forward, duplicate, and disseminate TMPs.

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Blessings and Love!

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Shatter the sound of silence!

Wake up!  Look up!  Stand up!  Speak up!  Act up for Jesus!

Salt!  Shine!  Leavenate!

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Reference for Pastor

Kopp Disclosure

(John 3:19-21)

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    We've got some really good pastors in Belvidere and Boone County, Illinois.

    Of course, I said some.

    I don't like most clergy, like me, because they often agree with the last person that they've talked to like bad sentences ending in prepositions.

    Any connection between too many pastors and Jesus by the book is purely coincidental.

    Fortunately, I was asked to write a reference for one of the good ones.

    We'll call him Adam because, uh, that's his name.

    Here goes...

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    I don't like most clergy.

    Though I've been ordained over 40 years and been a pastor for longer than that along with stints as a professor of homiletics and police chaplain, most pastors follow their franchises more than Jesus by the book.

    Most pastors, like me, fall into the mocking lament of Jesus in Matthew 15 and 23.

    Enough.

    I'm just trying to establish some credibility before commending Adam to you as a gem amid the fiberglass.

    God knows along with anyone remotely related to Him that too many of today's clergy enable apostasy in their denominations and congregants because their need to be liked by people exceeds their desire to love the Lord.

    Adam encourages my faith and faith of so many in Belvidere, Boone County, and beyond because he looks up, stands up, speaks up, and acts up for Jesus with consistently contagious enthusiasm without equivocation.

    Knowing denominations are idolatries and insult the One who loved us to death to overcome our idolatrous discriminations, segregations, and degradations, Adam prays and labors with other remnantal pastors to salt, shine, and leavenate.

    His warm pastoral care is matched by Matthew 10:16 acuity; evangelizing, discipling, and protecting people in a Judeish and Matthew 12:43-45 kinda way.

    In short, if I ever retire, which I won't unless forced by assassination or the minority who hate me becoming the majority, I would feel privileged to have Adam as our family pastor.

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    Yes, there are many really faithful pastors in our neck of the woods.

    If you're interested in knowing more about them, just call and I'll tell you how to get in touch with them so you can worship under their undershepherding to the Good Shepherd.

    I was going to provide a list for you; but I'd probably forget a name or four.

    Besides, they're in the book...if you know what He means.

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Blessings and Love!

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Shatter the sound of silence!

Wake up!  Look up!  Stand up!  Speak up!  Act up for Jesus!

Salt!  Shine!  Leavenate!

@#$%

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