Synod, First Night

Do you remember that famous YouTube video, shot at an African watering hole, of a lion, a croc, and a herd of wildebeests?  The lion is seen stalking the wildebeests until he spies one of the young, weak ones.  He charges the herd and pounces, carrying off the young. Meanwhile the croc, grabs the same calf from the water. While all this is going on, the wildebeests regroup, charging the lion and the croc. The great bull leader charges down on the lion, horns flashing until the lion lets go and the young calf escapes.
Tonight, I felt as if I had seen it all over again.  Only this time it wasn't the great bull of the herd. It was our moderator, Andy Putnam.  And it wasn't a watering hole. It was the floor of Synod, in a worship service.
Tonight Andy preached on Acts 20,  about wolves among the flock.  Without mentioning names, Andy identified the wolves as people who want to be leaders, who crave attention, who desire to divide and conquer us by petty differences and by doctrinal peccadilloes, who would sacrifice our unity to excessive purity. To these people, Andy suggested three remedies.
First, identify them.  It's no use being nice about it.  Call division what it is.
Second, shoot-em. Not literally, of course, just don't let them go unanswered.
Third, starve them,  Whatever you do, don't let them get started with divisive talk.
Andy's a nice guy. I've known him for years. He bends over backwards to maintain unity and peace within the church. That is how he got to be moderator.  Everyone likes and trusts him.
But apparently, the bull also has a pair of horns.
We ARP's have been for a long time like  herd of wildebeests,  feeding peacefully together, safe and secure in our own little corner or the world,  oblivious to the predators who strike and divide.  We've been for too long that way.  Well, no more.  Andy has shown us how to bellow when necessary.  I hope others will speak up in defense of the flock and the Gospel as well.
There's a famous poem by an Austrian pastor written during the Nazi occupation.
First they came for the Communists
But I did not speak out
Since I was not a Communist.
Then the came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Since I am not a Jew
Then they came for the labor unionists
But it was silent
Because I am not a labor unionist
Then they came for me,
and there was no one left
To speak out on my behalf.
Once we allow people to misrepresent others as unbelievers, to complain against those who do not deserve it, misrepresenting them, maligning their reputation and driving them out,  how long will it be until we ourselves are driven out as well.
I do not agree with many things at Erskine, or for that matter in the rest of the church, but I am brother to them all.
Those who would disturb our peace deserve our prayers.  Many of them are sincere. Those who are not need our prayers even more.
But let's all circle around and guard the herd, as Andy suggests, and maybe then we can see the church grow and prosper again. 

The Strength of Synod

Next week may be my last Synod.  The price of attendance has gone up form thirty to fifty-eight dollars.  I have just spent almost two hundred dollars on a hotel room.   When  food and gas are included in the price it should be over three hundred.  Besides the price,  in the future I may not be able to reschedule my classes to accommodate the time away.

 All in all, not much that happens on the floor seems worth the trouble. The impact of most of the speeches, greetings, presentations, urging, encouraging, rebuking,  informing, and thanking will last about as long as the wind it takes to pass them.  Only what effects the actual running of local churches or church institutions makes any difference.  The rest is pageantry.

Thinking back over my last thirty-two Synods, the one thing that I would truly miss are the people I have met. They are truly important, and usually have made the trip worthwhile.

What difference would it make if Synod were to dissolve tomorrow?  Would a single church close if it did?  Last fall I watched four  churches close, yet few of their members remain unchurched today, and those who have not yet found new churches are still going,  visiting around.  They have not stopped going to church, they are just been attending different churches. Any American Christian should be able to find a church.  Any church within our denomination ought to be able to find some Reformed body who would welcome them.  As an institution, we are simply not as important as we think. 

But if the ARP church dissolved, the true sadness of it would not be in the loss of institutions,  but the  disruption of friendships. If this is my last Synod, it would be the people I  would miss, not the institution.

Synod has been for me a time of sorrows and joy.  My thirty-two Synods have been a succession of friendships gained, lost, regained, and gone--colleagues of my  youth have moved on, retired, or simply passed away. There have been times when I have gone up the mountain to celebrate with my friends . Other times, I have gone up sadly, ashamed to meet my brothers, needing their kind words.  Sometimes, I have gone up the hill angry,  but I have always knew that there were people there who knew me, and I them.  This made me feel happy to come,  regardless of the circumstances. 

I have enjoyed the stories of people I have just met, the opportunities to  pray for others and to be prayed for, the chance to network  and share ideas.  Synod has been a place where I could meet heart to heart and soul to soul, and know together the love of God reflected in others.

What happens under the trees and in the dining hall is what Synod is really about, much more than what happens on the floor.  It is the most truly ARP thing about us.

Faith is about relationships--relationship to God and relationships to others.  The business  on the floor is about defending the status quo or reforming institutions, about worrying over money and power and other worthless things,  squeezing and fussing over particulars, so we can go on being institutions.  The structure quickly overcomes the purpose, like a family  that is more concerned about the house they live in than the home inside.  Like that family, we go on fighting over the color of the drapes and the condition of the carpet, neglecting the spiritual and emotional conditions of those we love so we can "get things done." 

Church is a great place to go if you want to run away from God--that is, if you  reduce the Body of Christ to an institution, members of of the Body reduced to church members, shepherd reduced to an office and Christ reduced to a symbol.  The official church moves on,  without the power to touch or heal anyone. In spite of our institutional order, though, the Body of Christ abides and the gates of hell cannot prevail against it. 

The strength of Synod has very little to do with what we do, but in what we choose to be--brothers and sisters  gathered in a caring community.  This is what makes us different from all other bodies I know.  We actually see each other face to face once a year.   When we forget the importance of these relationships and think of a denominational meeting as a theology class, debating society, or (God forbid) a political body,  we usually end up doing more harm than good.  When we let our strength, shine, though, Synod becomes a positive experience.

Pastoring the Pastors Part 2

A friend of mine recently told me about his honeymoon in Switzerland. While he and his wife were walking along a mountain path, he heard a young girl scream. There, on the other side of the railing that lined the path, was a girl, about nine or ten, hanging for her life off the side of the mountain.

My friend,  being a pastor,  first asked himself four questions.

First, did she deserve to be here? Obviously, she had been disobedient to her parents, so she was there of her own accord. We cannot expect someone to come to our rescue every time we disobey.  After all, our actions can have serious consequences.

Second,  was this girl capable of saving herself?  As a rule,  ten year old girls are wiry, energetic and fairly flexible. Chances are if he did nothing she would be all right. She might be worried now, but she would find some way of climbing up.  After all, we should not do for others what they can do for themselves.

Third,  was this be best use of his time?  After all, it was their honeymoon. Switzerland is a largely pagan place these days.  He could see stopping to tell someone about Christ--after all, that would be a matter of their eternal salvation. But just to rescue a girl he did not know who  God may have already predestined to destruction--he was not sure.

Fourth,  would it not be better to pray for her?  He was not sure of his ability to save her, since he himself was not that strong, and leaning over the rail would be dangerous.  Prayer however, is always appropriate, since God can save her, and even if she were destined to die, her eternal safety would be secure.

My friend  asked nothing like any of these of course. He and his wife pulled her to safety.

I mention this to illustrate what we so often do when we come across someone in crisis.  We first want to access blame. Second, we access their abilities according to our judgment, not theirs. Third,  we assume our time is more important than theirs. Fourth, we apply the pious cop-out of generous prayer, rather than putting our prayer into action.

Two days ago, I published a blog about pastoring pastors. It occurred to me later than if I did not follow up on what I wrote, I would be guilty of doing the same thing. 

We can't just say that pastors and their families, especially pastors undergoing difficulty,  need pastoring, we need to actually do it. 

So here are some practical suggestions that I think we should consider.

1. Establish a denominational office that would work like a Human Resources department of a company.  They would be responsible for circulating and maintaining data forms,  educating pastors as to their benefits in retirement and insurance,  helping to counsel pastors through life transitions, and generally be a resource person for the personal needs of pastors and their families.  This person would have no authority, only the responsibility of smoothing the way for pastors and their families to manage the crises of their lives. This person should be knowlegable not only of resources available for pastors, but (in a denomination as small as ours, at least) of the pastors themselves, and how our system works.
2. Encourage every presbytery to have a pastor of pastors. Ideally this would be an older pastor, retired or semi-retired, with the time to go visit each pastor in their church and in their home. They would receive expenses and (if possible) a small stipend for this. They would not have any authority in the church structure to hire or fire, but would be there in the same capacity as a pastor has in a church.
3. Establish a system of mentors and coaches for pastors, similar to what we have for mission developers today.  Coaches would function to show young pastors around the system, and to offer advice and counsel. Mentors would function as spiritual directors,  giving them a confidant and accountability partner. This doesn't have to be a pastor. It should definitely not be a member of his own church, but it should be someone who does not mind asking hard questions such as "how's your prayer life?" or "How are you doing with your wife?" or "What are your  biggest personal struggles?"
4. Have a system of retreat houses for pastors and their families, where they can go for spiritual and personal retreat.  Preferably this could be done on a presbytery level.  I know that Bonclarken often opens up their facilities for this, but I do not think that most pastors know or remember this at a time of crisis. Many times, a pastor may not want to go to a place where he is liable to run into people he knows.  Perhaps people who own time-shares or vacation homes could be persuaded to open up these for a week for a pastor's family in exchange for  tax deduction from the presbytery or synod.
5. Organize small groups across the denomination so pastors can fellowship with other pastors and encourage one another in spiritual disciplines. Having people to meet with weekly face to face is ideal. If this is not possible, modern technology gives us many other options,  phone conferencing, instant messaging, video conferencing, and Skype,  just to name a few.
6. Connect pastors with larger networks for pastors in mutual support.  There are numerous prayer meetings, such as prayer summits which bring pastors and laypersons together across denominational lines. 
7. Have groups of laypersons from a large number of persons who can assist displaced pastors and their families, as well as pastors. If you want to kill an idea, give it to a busy pastor! But if you want a job done right, give it to a layperson who has a passion for it.  Surely there are people around out presbyteries who can come alongside pastors who have lost churches and help them find jobs,  shelter, personal, and financial support.

Anyway, these are a few possibilities that are out there. 

If we want to help the church, help the pastors.  They will do a better job for us, if they know that they are being covered by support, not just in prayer, but in practical living as well.

There are pastors and their wives today who are hanging by their fingers.  We have a responsibility to hear their cries. 

Pastoring the Pastors, Part 1

I once heard John Maxwell tell about his minister father who served as a pastor from the 1920's to the 1950's. After retirement  he made a list of names of his fellow graduates from  seminary in the '20's and what happened to them later.  Out of the twenty men who  started with him, only two retired as pastors.  The majority dropped out of ministry in  the first five years. 

Sad, when you think about it. The ministry is a career with a very high casualty rate being tough on pastors and families alike. There is a reason we call the ministry "spiritual warfare."

Recently, I did something similar to what Maxwell's father had done.  I made a list of twenty names of ministers I have known in my thirty-two years  of ministry, who had served for at least five years, and what has happened to them.   I admit it was not a scientific list.  I just put down the twenty ministers in my church that I had known the best.  But I think it is a fair cross-section.   Here's what has happened to those twenty

--Six of them are currently out of the ministry.  As far as I can remember, none of them left voluntarily. They left because of strife within  their church, their family, or both. 

--Seven of them transferred out of our denomination.  Not one of those six would ever think of returning.   Ever.  In most of those cases family strife, internal strife, or denomination strife caused the change.

--The other eight are still are serving  within the denomination or have already retired.

After looking at the list,  It seems that more people are burned in the ministry than are blessed by it. According to one survey,  seventy percent of pastors reported that the ministry had had a detrimental effect on their families.   The pressures of the ministry are devastating and  long term. 

--Here are some statistics that appeared in Alan Fading's blog

--Eighty percent of seminary graduates do not stay longer than five years.

--Fifteen percent of foreign missionaries return home after a single year due to burnout and depression. Thirty-two percent of planted churches die within four years.

--The ministry is one of the highest professions for clinical depression.

I admit this may be a subjective judgment, but I cannot help but think that our little denomination is particularly unfavorable for ministerial retention and satisfaction. I have met many former ARP pastors, but I have never met one who wanted to come back in.  The main reason they cite for this is a lack of support.  There is a general impression among those who have left that they were abandoned.  I  remember a comment that one former colleague said to me after I had left a church--"What friend got you?"

I take remarks for what they are worth.  It is natural for those who have been hurt to make comments which are really just sour grapes. Many of those I have met,  even while saying the church abandoned them, will name individuals in the church who helped them.  Yet the complaint seems so universal that we must take it seriously.  If only one  of these hurting pastors is right, then that is one too many. 

When a pastor becomes ordained, he is no longer a member of any church, but is now a member of presbytery. Presbytery is now responsible for his spiritual well-being as well as his spiritual discipline.  A pastor's spouse may join a church, as may his children,  yet everyone knows that if the pastor leaves, or is asked to leave, the family goes with him.  The spiritual care of the pastor's family therefore depends upon what presbytery decides to do with the pastor. If the presbytery removes a pastor from his church,  they are also de facto removing his wife and children from the church as well.  At that point, the entire family is left without the spiritual support of a Christian church.   Yet at this time, when the pastor and his family needs help, who stands with him?  There will be an expression of concern from the Minister and His Work committee,  a few calls of assurance from others that they will be there for them if they think of anything to ask, and if they are not too busy.   There will be an offer to have lunch sometime, and lots of people wiling to pray for them, since prayer is cheap and never takes much time, but that's about it. 

Pastoral care of pastors is a hit-or-miss proposition.  If they have close friends in powerful places, they may receive tremendous support. If they do not, they can be all but ignored. 

Let me ask a few more practical questions.  Why do we not have a structure in place to help pastors?  Why do we not have a structure for helping pastors transition into other careers?  Why do we not assign particular churches to look out for displaced pastors and their families?  Why do we not have regular debriefings of pastors who are forced to leave churches, to see how we may help them, and more importantly to see what we can learn from them?  Why do we not have support groups for pastors and their families?  Why do we not have a system of regular pastoral visits of pastors and their families?  Why do we not work with pastors in helping them establish and maintain their spiritual disciplines?  Why do we not have anyone on a presbytery or synod level who is responsible for the pastoral care of pastors?   Why do we continue to solve our pastoral problems by asking the pastor to leave, even when we know it is not the pastor's fault,  when we know that the problem is with the church, but it is easier to replace the pastor than fix the church?

The reason is obvious. Pastors are expendable.  There is always a line of naïve young men lining up to move into even the most difficult situation,  ready to be chewed up and spit out, like their brothers before them.

When I have brought these things up in the past, I have been accused of wanting to have bishops in the church, who would exert power above. That's our problem--we only see the relationship between pastor and presbytery as a power relationship.  Having a person responsible for being supportive and friendly seems beyond our grasp. 

In John 17,  Jesus prays in His high priestly prayer that the Father would make us one with one another as we are one with Him.  In John 13 he tells us that loving one another is the mark of being a disciple.  So--where is the oneness?  Oneness is not something we work to have. It is there already.  We are mutually accountable to each other, whether or not we even know each other.  If one of us is injured we all suffer.

Sometimes, our little denomination reminds me of a partially dead tree.  Here and there we see new, green life, and we rejoice for it. But we also see dead branches, cut off from the rest, rotting and termite riddled,  where the life never touches.  The whole tree suffers because of it.    

It comes down to this--we ministers need to see ourselves as members of each other's families.  When one brother stumbles, other brothers need to help him,  both officially and unofficially.  We do not have to know them well to recognize the organic connection that exists between other members of Christ's Body--in particular members of our own Presbytery. That is the unity we want in our churches. It ought to what we crave between pastors as well. 

A Call for Revival

In ten days,  my Presbytery will meet in Columbia, SC.   As we come up on our meeting, the need for special prayer seems more and more imperative. Do we really believe prayer can make a difference, or don't we? 

 What else can we do?  Programs haven't helped.  I get the impression that we are becoming increasingly irrelevant to the society we inhabit. 

I have never  seen a great awakening of the Spirit myself, though I have often prayed for the privilege.  But it did come close once, though.  In 1971 I attended Asbury College in Wilmore, Kentucky. The year before, on  February 4, 1970,  the Spirit of God sent revival to that institution. 

It began at a chapel service at nine in the morning. The Dean felt led to open the pulpit for testimony.  The service ended 184 hours later.  For eight days, twenty-four hours a day,  student after student testified, wept, and rededicated their lives to Christ.  By the end of the week, revival spread from the college to churches and colleges across the country  The revival at Asbury has been credited as a major spiritual influence in the Jesus Movement of the 1970's.

I wasn't there, but I came the next year.  It was real--in fact, it had not really stopped when I arrived on campus a little over a year later.   Here are some of the comments made by people who were there.

“The emphasis was never upon the gifts of the spirit. The emphasis was upon..sin. The need for repentance, need for restitution, the need for repairing relationships, human being to human being and the need for bringing alive into obedience the need for the highest and the best.”

“The amazing thing was a person would tell what had happened, it would be recapitulated, as a person would go somewhere and tell what God had done in his auditorium … it would

take place in the church where the person was telling it!”

“The less impressive the student was the more effective an instrument he was”

Sounds  exciting--yes?

This revival--like all revivals--came as a sovereign move of God.  No one can make revival come.  Only God can bring it. However, this doesn't mean he brings it without us playing a part. Revivals usually comes because Christians seek it--not just casually, but desperately and  deeply. In other words, revivals come in response to our passionate seeking after God. 

This was true of the Asbury Revival.  Robert Coleman in his account of it in One Divine Moment referred to the prayer that was going up before the revival broke.

Before the revival there had been a sense of general spiritual laxity at the college.  Professors had been accused of teaching false doctrine.  Financial scandals had rocked the administration.  More than that,  some among the faculty and student body had felt the only solution to their problems was to get serious with God.

So they reached back into their historical roots , all the way back to the early Methodist tradition.  The Methodists began with  prayer meetings on Oxford campus, where people came together for regular prayer, confession, and the practice of spiritual disciplines.  A small group of people influenced the world  through seeking the Spirit.

A few on the Asbury campus sought to emulate that early Methodist example.  Here are the words from someone who was there:

“How did it come? What called it?…Our need.”

“We had some students interested in prayer. In October before the Spirit came in February six students came together, banded together in what they called ‘the great experiment.’”

“They covenanted for 30 days to take 30 minutes every morning and spend in prayer with the Word, writing down what truth they got from the Word. They were to obey that day, sharing their faith somewhere in the course of the day, and meeting once a week for those 30 days and checking up on each other to see that each one had done his disciplines that week. So for 30 days they met that way and they worked that way.”*

As these students met, a sense of anticipation filled them.  And in time,  God answered them with revival. 

I am not sure that a sudden revival in itself is the best answer to our problems==but then I am not the Holy Spirit. It may be that such an outpouring of the Spirit is exactly what we need.   I am sure, however that the flame of the Spirit must be sought, nurtured, and fanned by the practice of spiritual disciplines and mutual support.  I truly believe that the shallow,  passionless,  listless,  cheap grace which marks most of our attempts at revival will make little difference in the end.  If we do not sense our need, we will not welcome the cure when offered.

It seems to me that the only way we will transform the world is through a faith that has more resolution and passion than the world has for sin.  If the world around us stubbornly persists in godlessness, then we must persevere even more in godliness.  It the world has passion for violence,  sex, and power,  then we must have even more passion for devotion, obedience, and prayer.  That requires the Holy Spirit, and a genuine effort to be seek His face. 

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*Pasted from <http://kimolsen.wordpress.com/2008/06/24/the-asbury-revival-the-great-experiment/>

Faith and Passion

One of the surprising things I've found in our recent sojourn among the Lutherans is that we Presbyterians are not the only "frozen chosen."  Lutherans call themselves that, too.  All this time, I always thought "frozen chosen" was a distinctly Presbyterian epithet.    It's nice to know we are not alone in the freezer.

Now, some Presbyterians may take umbrage with this,  that Lutherans would call themselves the
"frozen chosen."   We seem to take a certain pride in being the frozen chosen--in living  out our faith without messy emotionalism. We even have an answer to that gentle insult--we may have a frozen faith,  but at least it does not spoil so quickly as some other Christians.   We have kept the faith for a long, long time.

Presbyterians are not really cold, nor are we unemotional.  People  often forget that most of the great revivals of American history, including those accompanied by  wild exuberance, by shouting, barking,  dancing and so forth,  broke out first among Presbyterians and were largely led in their early stages by Presbyterians.  Jonathan Edwards'  famous hellfire-and-brimstone sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God", was originally preached in a Presbyterian church to Presbyterians, and if the folk tales are true that while he had to ask the congregation to quit crying so loudly so he could finish it,  those were Presbyterians he had to tell to be quiet.

Nevertheless,  we must painfully admit that there are good reasons for calling us the "frozen chosen."  Presbyterians are in general a reticent and reserved bunch. Our dispassionate approach to preaching and worship is shocking to the unaccustomed.  Baptists, Pentecostals, and  African Americans with whom I currently work cannot fathom why Presbyterian do not shout with joy before such a wonderful God as ours.  Frankly, I wonder why we don't sometimes myself. 

In the face of the omnipotent,  majestic, and overwhelming  Lord of the Universe, why are we so unemotional?   Where is our joy in His presence? Where are our tears of fear and awe? Where is our zeal in praising Him?  Aren't our detractors right to wonder why we don't shout for joy?

Emotional reticence was not the way of our Presbyterian ancestors.  One cannot read Calvin, Luther, Knox, or the Puritans without being struck by the passion in their prose.  We cannot listen to "A Mighty Fortress" or read Knox's "Last Blast against the Monstrous Regiment of Women" and think of them as the products of talking heads in an effete university.  These were men of flesh and bone and fire. 

Our emotional reticence does not come from the Bible, which tells us to shout with joy , to weep before the porch and the altar, and encourages us to bring even our worst fears and anger before Him by the example of the Psalms, but is a product of the Enlightenment reason-worship, Platonic dualism, and Victorian prudery.  It is a denial of both the full image of God, which includes His passion, wrath, and delight, as well as of total depravity, which  posits that our heads are as fallen as our hearts.  Furthermore,  our tendency to look upon the emotional excesses of other churches with distain is simply the instinct found in every sinner to spot the mote in another person's eye while missing the log in our own.

The truth is that it does not matter how right our doctrine may be if we do not marry it with spiritual passion.  Daniel Goleman in his book Emotional Intelligence argues successfully that our ability to understand emotions is a better predictor of success than our ability to reason.  Gestalt psychology, for all its faults,  demonstrates successfully that showing emotion intensifies emotion, that laughing makes us happy, crying makes us sad, and arguing feeds our anger.  The  Old Testament writers in expressing praise used words denoting outward actions not inward feelings--brightening the face, shouting,  even leaping for joy. They understood that we cannot separate having feelings from displaying our feelings.   If we know it, we should show it.

As I said before, Presbyterians are not unemotional people--we are very emotional at times.   But we are sometimes reticent to show them,  so we lack their power.  We'd love to be swept away in praise to the Lord, as were Paul and the Puritans--we really would. But we fear  embarrassment and so we do or say nothing.  We wait for God to excite us,  overwhelm us, empower us,  but when the chance arises, we don't want to show it until we are sure. Uncertain of its propriety, we wait for an awakening of soul that never comes.

C S Lewis wrote of the lion Aslan  (who represents Christ) in The Chronicles of Narnia that he is not a safe lion, not a tame lion, but one that is good.  We among the "frozen chosen" are looking for Christ to be both tame and good.  We want God to bless us, but we do not want to risk becoming foolish while He  does. Our shyness keeps us from embracing His lovely wildness; our fear of uncertainty keeps us from leaping out in faith; our aversion to embarrassment keeps us from  childlike glee.  We will not ride the winds of the Spirit until they are safely in a bottle.  Bottled wind, in the end is nothing but stale air. 

This is not intended to take anything away from Presbyterians (or the Lutherans either).  The historic Protestant traditions have made vast contributions to Christian life and thought. We make the best teachers, the best administrators, the best scholars.  But is it so hard to imagine that we can be more than just scholars, or that the Spirit of God is more than just an intellectual ideal?  Is it possible that we can not only reason like Paul but dance like David, as well?  We have our theology down cold, but  we need more than a cold theology. Revival is more than this. It is being swept away in the wonderful God, in the passion of Christ,  and in the power of the unpredictable winds of the Spirit. 

 I believe that we will never be revived if we are not wiling to release the power of Spiritual passion--to cry over our sins,  to shout over our salvation, to dance with joy and prostrate ourselves in sorrow. As long as we play it safe and keep our feelings to ourselves, our energies  will forever be wasted in the senseless pursuit of composure.   Church will feel like a duty,  worship will feel like a funeral, praise will be joyless, love will be mirthless,  repentance will be tearless,  evangelism will be mere news without  goodness,  charity will be cheerless, and hope will be hopeless.  Our heads may be the rudder of our lives, but we will not get far without the winds of Holy Spirit passion.  Without the fire,  the truth we offer  the world will be as appealing as a frozen steak on a plate. 

Revive us, o Lord. Fill each heart with Your love  Let our soul be rekindled with fire from above.  Amen and amen.