It is photo directory time at our church. Most church-goers know the drill. Every member or family or regular attender is asked to sign up to have their photo taken by a professional photographer.  Around December each of us will receive a copy of the church’s photo directory with the portraits, names, phone numbers, and street addresses of all of those who participated. In the meantime, the directory company will try to sell us multiple copies of our portraits to give to family members and loved ones as Christmas presents. It’s designed as a win-win. The church members get photo directories, and the company makes money off the portraits it sells.

For all the hassle the process tends to be, I am all in favor of church photo directories.

“Who is that person who always sits on the left side towards the back?”

Right now our church is at the point of trying to get as many of us as possible to sign up to have our photos taken. Becky and I have made our appointment.

As part of the campaign to persuade us to participate, we’ve seen a promotional video during our pre-worship announcement time. Good-looking families and individuals of every age, gender, and ethnicity are shown smiling for the camera and looking good in the finished directory.

At one point in the promotional video, the narrator says, “If you only attend a few times a year, you are part of our church family.”  I wanted to stand up and yell, “Lie!” I did not.

The directory company offers incentives for the church to get lots of photos taken. Additional activity pages. Extra copies of the finished directory to give to new members. The more the better.

I have no problem with those who only attend a few times a year having their photos included in our new directory. Maybe I’ll learn some new names. But you can’t be a part of a family – a church family or any other family – if you don’t show up.

The infrequent attenders at our church miss the regular preaching of the word that nurtures our souls. They have not joined in prayer or singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. They have not been at the communion table when we have shared the means of grace or in the pew as we celebrated a baptism or confirmation. They did not notice when a faithful member was no longer in his or her regular seat or know to offer a word of comfort to a grieving spouse. They have not been around to volunteer to fill a ministry need or participate in a service project.

The idea that even if you only attend a few times a year, you are still a member of the church family is a happy thought, but a lie (of course, I am not talking about shut-ins and those with Sunday morning jobs).

26 years ago Robert Putnam famously wrote about the problem associated with Bowling Alone. In 2023, the Surgeon General declared a “loneliness epidemic.” A recent report from Harvard says, “the problem has been made worse by increased social change toward individualism, fostered by the development of smartphones and social media.”

We need each other, and “each other” can’t happen a few times a year. Paul reminds the Corinthians that the eye cannot tell the hand “I have no need of you.” “So it is with Christ,” he writes. We need one another.

The thought that even if you only attend a few times a year, you are a part of our church family is a happy thought. But it is a lie. Maybe I should stand up and say something if they show the promotional video again this week. I probably won’t.

With apologies to all you N.T. Wright fans, I think I like the idea of “a home on God’s celestial shore” from the old Gospel hymn, I’ll Fly Away. (Theologian N.T. Wright insists that we should avoid talking about “going to heaven” and think more about “heaven coming to earth.”  He has a point often over-made by his enthusiasts. Psalm 90, the Psalm of Moses, however, reminds us:
                The years of our life are seventy,
                                or even by reason of strength eighty;
                yet their span is but toil and trouble;
                                they are soon gone, and we fly away. Psalm 90:10 [ESV])
 
I’ve been thinking about when I come to die not because of any health problems or other concerns – I’m hoping to make at least eighty years of life by Moses’ reason of strength before I fly away. What has me pondering death is a disturbing article in the Wall Street Journal. Under the headline “Inside Putin’s $26 Billion Quest for Longevity,” the story tells how “Russian state scientists appointed by Putin have focused on two key technologies: bioprinting, or 3D-printing living tissue, and xenotransplantation, or growing human organs inside mini-pigs, a porcine breed deemed genetically compatible to humans.” Continue reading →

Churchgoers of a certain age may feel a twinge of PTSD when they see a photo of an old Kodak Carousel slide projector. We remember the guest missionary setting up the screen and projector for the program after the potluck. And we remember our quick prayer, “Please not all three trays.”  But all three trays it was.

My apologies for loading the third tray of Brazil trip slides.

The photo in the header was taken in the woodshop of a friend in Brazil. He and his wife live not far from Igreja Presbiteriana and are faithful members of the church. The photo offers just a glimpse of the craftsmanship that emerges from this non-descript shop next to a non-descript house in a non-descript neighborhood.

Becky and I and Pastor Michael visited our friend and his workshop our last full day in Brazil. As we were admiring the beauty of his work, he told us a little bit of his story. His wife is an architect, but prior to the Covid pandemic, he had not yet settled into a satisfying vocation. His job as an Uber driver ended with the pandemic lockdowns. Forced to stay at home, he took up woodworking as a way to spend the time that was suddenly his to spend. Pastime became vocation. His vocation is now a growing business. Here is our friend’s business Instagram page if you would like to see more. Continue reading →

We are back from Brazil. The collage of photos is an incomplete chronicle of the trip, each photo telling a story – some of those stories are reminders of wonderful things in the past, and some point forward to relationships and works that may yet come.

Those reminders of the past are rooted in the many short-term mission trips to Brazil we were able to take over many years. Wonderful trips.

While the short-term missions phenomenon has not yet spent itself, it may not be as robust as it was prior to the pandemic. From the 1990s through the 2010s, short term trips were at the heart of many American churches’ mission outreach. Youth and adults alike would raise vast amouts of money, book passage to some foreign country and spend a week running a Vacation Bible School for the kids they found in the villages and towns of the foreign country, painting the building of their host church, or passing out evangelistic tracts to people whose language they did not speak. It felt so good to help those poor people, and feeling good is what American Christians are all about. Pastors would drop in for a week of training indigenous church planters and return home with a PowerPoint presentation for their sending congregation showcasing the amazing effectiveness of their teaching. Bragging rights never end. Continue reading →

I’ve mentioned our upcoming trip to Brazil a couple of times (here and here). Well, the time has come and we will be on our way in just a few days. We visited Brazil last fall, thinking it might be a last trip to see a place and a people so important to us. But now we are going again (one more time?). The occasion is the 30^th anniversary celebration for Igreja Presbiteriana no Jardim América, the congregation to which our lives have been so deeply bound for most of those thirty years. As I have said before, we were at IPJA for its 10^th anniversary and for its 20th anniversary. It seems right to be there for the 30^th.

The photo in the header is a view of the church’s community taken from the church and looking uphill towards Favela da Ventosa. I share the photo not to commend ourselves for helping poor or disadvantaged people, but as a reminder of a place dear to us and the home of friends who are a gift from God. Continue reading →