One Pastor's Perspective

We are human.  Imperfect.  And we cannot help it!!

That is the entire truth.  The whole truth.  And nothing but the truth.  As Sgt Joe Friday would say, these are “just the facts.”  And while we cannot help but know that we are imperfect, there are several options concerning what we DO about it.  And be WE, I am talking about those of us who know Christ…

• We can use it as the ULTIMATE EXCUSE.  And every time we fall short, we can just shrug our shoulders and say “I am imperfect.  I just cannot help it!!”  Not sure that will wash when we step into eternity.
• We can IGNORE IT.  We can put on the front of absolute perfection because, after all, that is what the world expects of the church.  RIGHT??  When we put on masks and pretend we have perfect lives, the only people we convince of that might be ourselves…  On a delusional day.  We know our flaws.  Most anyone can see through masks, especially over time.  We can pretend this is not reality, but all that really does it complicate an already imperfect life.
• We can TRUST GOD to remake us in HIS IMAGE.  This is probably the most difficult of all options, because it takes work.  Discipline.  It requires to read His word, spend time with Him and with other disciples.  To actually be vulnerable with God and allow other followers of Christ to hold us accountable.  To seek the TRUTH of God in His word, and NOT live life as the world does:  Only doing what is RIGHT in my own eyes.  I will, to the best of my ability, do what is right in God’s eyes.  And the only way I will know what THAT is will be by spending time with Him.

I am sure there are other options … Other routes around this problem.  But those three are the most popular.  And the route you choose will have a direct impact on the happiness, peace, and meaning that you find (or don’t find) in life.

Which will you choose?

ANNNNNND it’s December 1st.  DECEMBER FIRST!!!  CHRISTMAS DAY IS 3.5 WEEKS AWAY!!!!

WOW!  This year has flown by.  I’m not sure if I am more shocked it is December 1st, or that it was over 70 degrees in Florence, SC, yesterday.  December is a busy month at Ebenezer.  Seems we have several special things going on each week.  Therefore, it will fly by too.

My prayer for ME and for YOU is this:  That we will slow down, remember the Reason for this season (which is the unexplainable grace of God expressed to us through His Son, Jesus), and enjoy every moment we have with our families and friends.  There will come a day when we are not able to do just that.  And, I’ve got to be honest with you:  When I think about Mom and Dad, which I’ve been doing a lot in the last two weeks, I am thankful for no regrets in my relationships with them.

Spend time with those you love.  Have fun with them!!!  I promise it will be time well-spent.

Yesterday was the first Sunday of Advent.  “Prophet’s Sunday.”  We remember the prophets and the role they played in the Advent of Christ.  Their message?  HOPE.  God has not forgotten His people.  A Messiah will be born and will save God’s people from imminent ruin.  From the pain and guilt of sin.  From the dark forces of this world that seek to destroy God’s people.  It was quite a message, told to the Children of Israel for centuries.

Today, in 2015 A.D., the world is not so different.  And neither is the message.  And neither are the recipients of His message.

And, as Father Alfred Delp once wrote, in order for us to fully realize the impact of the Advent of Christ, we need to recognize the state in which we really find ourselves.  No, we do not have it all together (no matter how much we pretend).  Yes, we are in desperate need of a Savior.  We need to find that place where each of us ENDS and He begins!!!

Much like the Children of Israel, we find ourselves in a world where almost every man and woman seeks to do what is right in their own eyes, and they do not care for God’s input on the matter.  So many have not only put God on the back shelf, they have removed Him completely from their lives (or so they believe).

What can we do??  PRAY.  EXAMINE OURSELVES.  BE THE SALT AND LIGHT this world so desperately needs.  FOLLOW CHRIST.

Have faith.  God is still on His throne.  He still has a plan.  You are STILL a part of that plan.

The season is here.  Thanksgiving is three days away and Christmas around the corner.  And I am not sure I am ready for all of this.

This season has not been so good to the Wike clan in recent years.  In 2014, I had to head home on the Monday before Thanksgiving due to the death of my uncle, Bob Wike (Dad’s only brother).  Uncle Bob had become a great link to Dad’s life as a young man and I really appreciated the times we would sit and talk when he visited Dad.  He was a miracle in himself, one of the first kidney transplants at MUSC over 40 years ago.  I miss him.

Then, of course, there is last year.  Almost every day now I think about where we were this time last year, and what happened on that day.  It was surreal.  There are times when I still cannot believe it all unfolded the way it did.

Dad lost his father (and my grandfather) Clarence Wike in July of 1966.  I was almost a year old, so I never really knew him.  Dad told me years later that a day didn’t go by that he didn’t think about his dad and miss him.  I had no idea how true all of that is.  I still dream about them.  Occasionally I remember that I haven’t called them yet for the day.  Then it hits …

Now, here I am preparing for the Thanksgiving worship at Ebenezer (which I haven’t been able to attend since 2013)… All I can think about is how this will be the first Thanksgiving and Christmas without them.

So, I’m going to try this again.  Hoping I will be able to worship with my EBC family tomorrow evening, and again on Sunday.  And missing Mom and Dad.  And thankful they lived lives that were worth missing.

Work ethic … What do those words mean to you??  I am thankful my dad taught me his work ethic.  Jump in the ditch and get it done … Whatever “it” might be.  It’s okay to get dirty doing hard work.  Something worth doing is worth doing the right way.  So many other things Don Wike taught me, his only son.  And I appreciate them.

Years later, I find myself in a place of leadership.  I constantly read leadership theories and input from other leaders, especially other pastors in whom I place trust.  There are men in my life who have walked the paths that I walk.  I KNOW they have faced some of the same obstacles I face.  They probably will never know the difference they make for me.

So many of them have taught me things that are consistent with those taught by my dad.  One of the most valuable, and one that I wish every young minister (and every young person) would take note of is this:  It is hard to lead from the rear.  You can do it, but not for long.

If you are trying to lead others, they see and they can tell if you are phoning it in.  They are much more likely to follow a leader who has feet on the ground than one who sits atop a horse behind them, barking orders for them to obey.  Sometimes you have to SHOW the way to those who lead.  When they have their feet beneath them, you can multiply effectiveness by sending them in one direction (especially if you are marching toward another direction).  This will only work once a leader has taught, trained, and prepared his/her followers to march on their own.

Work ethic.  If you have it, people around you will see it.  If you don’t, they will see that, too.  Jump into the ditch.  Get dirty when necessary.  Those who follow you will not only appreciate it, they won’t hesitate to jump in when its their time.

People are funny …  The smallest things drive us over the edge.  We place tremendous value on items that mean so little in God’s grand scheme.

I once heard a story about a very smart man.  He had heard all of his life (just as I have) the you cannot take your earthly riches with you to heaven.  Personally, I have never seen a hearse pulling a U-Haul trailer.  But, anyway …  This man somehow figured it out.  Just before his final step into eternity, he developed a special bag and filled it with gold bars.  He passed away and his family buried him with the bag.  When he opened his eyes for the first time after death, his bag was by his side!!  HE WAS THRILLED!!

As he walked with St Peter through the pearly gates, he found the bag was too heavy to lift.  He was dragging the bag along while he talked to St Peter.  Peter said nothing of the bag at first, but finally had to know.  The man described how he had figured this whole thing out.  Peter said “You, sir, are a brilliant man.  And I cannot wait to see what you brought over from the other side!”  The man opened the bag and Peter gazed in ..

“PAVEMENT???  YOU BROUGHT PAVEMENT????”  The bars of gold the man held so dear on earth were nothing more than pavement for the streets of heaven …

We miss the boat in so many ways when we choose to see life from our perspective instead of from God’s perspective.  We judge churches based on our preferences and what makes us feel good, and have forgotten that worship is all about God.  It is actually OUR response to Him.  It is for Him, meant to be burned as a fragrant offering to please Him.

We forget that a church, a local group of believers, have gathered to pursue all five functions of a New Testament church.  Worship is certainly the most important, but every local church should be engaged in EVANGELISM.  If we are not telling the lost about Jesus Christ, we are NOT functioning as a New Testament church  Every local church should be engaged in DISCIPLESHIP, teaching each other everything we have learned from our collective relationships with God.  Every local church should be engaged in MINISTRY, serving not only the needs within our church, but also the needs of our community and our world in EVERY WAY God has called us.  Every local church should be engaged in FELLOWSHIP.  We care about each other.  We are family.  We will hold each other to be accountable.

There are five functions of a New Testament church.  It really is about more than worship, and even when it comes to worship, it is all about HIM.  Not US.

IF Christ is your Savior, I pray for you today that you will live to fulfill these five functions.  Because, guess what?  The CHURCH is not an address or a set of buildings … The CHURCH is YOU.

Life can be a struggle sometimes …  Things don’t go exactly the way we planned.  Or desired.  Mother Nature deals us a blow that changes the paths of lives and completely rearranges what we thought to be true.  People … friends … disappoint you with their hypocrisy, with their talking a good game about being a friend, about being different, about rising above the standards of the world.  Then they go and say or do something that completely betrays their words and intentions.  A struggle, I tell you.  And the struggle is real.

Sometimes life disappoints.  People disappoint.  Situations disappoint.  And then I realize that, as perfect as I would like to believe I am, I AM NOT.  Period.  I disappoint others.  At times (and mostly unintentionally), I confound situations.  As much as I would like for life to go smoothly, I am the cause of some of the turbulence, too.

There has only been ONE who lived a perfect life.  And we crucified Him!!!  So, we move on.  We remember that love overlooks a multitude of sins.  Even if those around us refuse to love with Jesus’ kind of love and refuse to spur each other on towards good things in the Kingdom of God, we continue to do OUR BEST.  And leave the judging to God.

Praying for you today.  Pray for me too!!!

I love my family.  I’ve got cousins all over South Carolina, and across the nation.  We are a pretty close-knit group.  But they are not my only family.  Facebook has reconnected me to a bunch of my friends from high school, and they are my family, too.  I am a lucky man.

And there is another group … People with whom I’ve been connected in ministry over the years.  From places like Washington Avenue, Enoree, Fairview, Woodmere, and now Ebenezer.  And they are STRONG family.  They live across the nation.  While most of them I worked with in Youth Ministry, they now have families of their own.  Serve in churches and ministries.  Work as doctors, lawyers, ministers, and a variety of other occupations.  They chase their dreams and live their lives, and it blesses me to see it all unfold.  They are family.

It’s funny:  Yesterday, I was thinking about how close this family is and how (many years ago) Seth Buckley modeled this idea of FAMILY in ministry.  I was thinking about some of those people and how we all pull together in times like SC has been through in the last few weeks.  And about 30 minutes after all of that processed through my mind, my phone rang.  It was Chris Meaders … The Iceman himself.  Once upon a time, I was Chris’ 7th grade Sunday School teacher.  I was his JV basketball coach.  He has grown up a little since then, and is now the Missions and Discipleship Pastor at Mt Airy Baptist Church in Easley.

He wanted to check on us and said he had a burden … He and his pastor were looking for a church that would need help after all of this flooding and mess.  We discussed it and I tried to do my part to connect him with a target.  And God only knows what HE will do with the faithfulness of Chris, his pastor and his folks from Mt Airy.

Family … Wow!!  I am blessed.

There is a trend.  It actually pre-dates the Great SC Flood of 2015.  In fact, you can identify this trend going back in the history of humanity for THOUSANDS of years.  The trend is this:  We are starting to believe that WE are greater than God.  And this, my friends, is a dangerous place in which to be.

The Children of Israel were constantly fighting this.  They were caught in a cycle:  They would realize their great need for God, TRUST HIM, and then they would see the prosperity and peace of trusting Him.  Then things would be good for a few years.  And those thoughts would creep in:  They would slowly begin to believe they were the masters of their own destinies, that THEY were the source of their prosperity and peace.  And the more they minimized God, the more danger they walked into.  Then God would leave them to the desires of their hearts, and they would find themselves broken, desperate, and realizing just how much they needed God.  They would trust Him, and the cycle would start all over again.

We are guilty of doing the same thing in 2015.  And the circumstances are ripe for the perfect storm:  We could easily FAIL to recognize that God is the Source of our strength, our provision, our protection, and every good thing that have and are.  The modern church is trending in some dangerous areas:  We do not GIVE our time to build His kingdom…  We fail to recognize and admit that God has called EACH OF US to fulfill a role.  Many times, this role will be found in a local church like Ebenezer.  We do not GIVE our money in obedience to Him.  Not only do we not TITHE, as we are Biblically instructed to do, but we don’t give to help the poor or give with the Holy Spirit prompts us to do so.

Now … After the flood, these temptations will be even greater because WE ARE AFRAID.  Because, deep down, we still believe we are the masters of our destinies. We forget or just fail to admit that God is still in control, and He has STILL called us to be obedient to HIM.

Yes, we are in a dangerous place.  But there is ONE THING you can do that will make all of the difference in the world:  And that is OBEY GOD.  And, that is my prayer for YOU today.  If I can help you with this, please contact me!!!  davidwike@ebcsc.com