It’s impossible to count how many wardrobes and closets I explored as a kid. Stretching my fingers all the way to the back…reaching…reaching…

The disappointment of my fingers finding solid wood instead of a lamppost…

My quests in search of another hidden passage into Narnia would eventually come to an end. Chalk it up to ‘maturing’ or ‘growing up’ but if I see an old wardrobe at an antique mall or a garage sale, I still reach my hand to the back. Just in case.

The Chronicles of Narnia captured my heart and imagination. I wanted a pet mouse because of Reepicheep. I risked my life staying up late with the covers over my head trying to keep the light of the flashlight from escaping. I just had to get to the next chapter. Okay, one more chapter. Okay. Seriously… This is the last one.

I introduced my kids to Aslan, Lucy, Peter, Edmund and Prince Caspian. I loved watching them become consumed by the adventure. I even ignored the glow of flashlights leaking out from the bottom of their bedroom door after bedtime.

This is the beauty of children’s stories. They open up worlds, possibilities. They plant tiny seeds of hope and values and passion inside the imagination of a child.

So what in the world could be dangerous about a children’s story?

Seeing them only as children’s stories.

A good children’s story has layers. There will be a depth to the story that speaks to deeper issues, that pushes the adults to wrestle with things that maybe they don’t really want to wrestle with. If we only look at the children’s story as a children’s story, we will miss it. We can’t let the simplicity fool us.

I feel that way about Blotch. It’s a simple story. It is easy to read, easy to grasp, and kids love it. But nestled in the simplicity are deep truths to wrestle with: Sin, Forgiveness, Redemption, Salvation. Truths that, if we allow them, will not only challenge us but hopefully inspire us to be transformed.

We wrap up the book this coming Sunday in an unique way. In the book, Blotch finally meets someone who can actually do something about the blotches. If you haven’t been keeping up, no worries. Come anyway. We’ll get you up to speed. We’ve got a meaningful conclusion planned. It’s going to be awesome.

In the meantime, maybe it’s time for us ‘old people’ to rediscover the joy and wonder of children’s stories and to read them with a different set of eyes, looking deeper for those riches that are there for us as well.

As many of you know, we kicked off our Discipleship Coaching Ministry last fall. The plan was to make sure that every Western Hills family had someone who would check on them at least one time a month asking them, “How can I pray for you?”  The ultimate goal was for these coaches to help people grow in their faith in the areas of Love God, Live Connected, Serve All, and Multiply Another. In order to complete this picture, each of our coaches had an elder that was responsible to check up on them and was available for further questions and training.

Over these months, we’ve learned a couple of things. First, our coaches told us clearly that having ten families (or more) was WAY too many. They could consistently hit three or four families with deep, meaningful conversations, but beyond that was proving to be very difficult. The second thing we learned was that we needed more training.

So we’ve had to make some changes, and we are already in the middle of some of those changes.

First, we trained our elders on how to train coaches. Next, our elders spent a couple of months training our coaches. We gave our current coaches permission to choose three to four families that they could continue to stay connected with and to help identify new coaches who could possibly pick up some of their other families. Between now and the end of August, we will be training these new coaches and re-organizing how all of these parts fit together: elders, coaches, and congregation. This will hopefully put us in a good position this September to have a fully-functioning Discipleship Coaching Ministry!

When we launched this concept, the goal was to become a multiplying church: a place where every person who calls Western Hills home functions as more than just a consumer, but as a Kingdom Ministry Partner. We know that this intersection of the Great Commandment and Great Commission is where real life happens. This is where Love, Live, Serve, and Multiply come to life, and it’s where real change can occur. Therefore, we want to do everything we can to empower people to live in that place.

This is still the goal, and we will get there!! There is so much at stake, much more than just church growth. I firmly believe that every single Christ-follower is gifted and called for a specific plan that will further His Kingdom. We want to be a church that empowers that kind of life. This tool of discipleship coaching can be a huge help for us in becoming this kind of church.

Thank you for being patient with us as we figure this out. We are committed to making this work because we know what is at stake.

Let’s keep chopping wood and praying to the Lord of the harvest!

Have you heard that we started the new series “Blotch” this past Sunday? (Don’t you wish there was a sarcasm font?)

In case you’ve missed it – Blotch is a children’s book written by my good friend Andy Addis who is also the lead pastor of Crosspoint Church based in Hutchinson, Kansas. It’s a child’s book that unpacks some deep truths like sin, forgiveness, redemption, and salvation. It’s fun. It’s deep. And this is why the whole church is going through it this summer.

The whole place is blotched up and ready to go!

I want to give you 5 ways that Blotch can make your summer awesome!

1. Read Blotch as a family.
It’s fun and every person in your family is going to be able to access it. Plus there are great discussion questions at the end of the book for each chapter.

2. Get involved in a Blotch Connect Group.
It’s a kid’s book with deep topics. Our Connect Groups are ready to unpack these issues in all of their nuances. Topics like forgiveness, redemption, confession, justification – these are concepts that Blotch tackles from a child’s perspective but will go deeper in our Connect Groups.

3. Give a copy of Blotch away to one of your neighbors.
Pray about it, and then just do it. Give them the book and then…

4. Invite them to come to Western Hills Church during the series.
You know the services are going to be awesome. The stage design is up and fun. The messages are going to be clear and redemptive.

5. Start sharing your faith with somebody.
Don’t think of sharing your story as a ‘one-time’ event. Develop a relationship and start an ongoing conversation with a friend about faith and how Jesus has changed your life. Use Blotch as an introductory tool to that conversation.

I am so excited about this book and the possibilities that it has for us as a congregation and all the different ways this book could be used.

During the school year, particularly in the winter and spring, I have a big problem.

After a long day of work, school activities, being the carpool dad, and whatever else being the parent of 3 teens calls for, there is nothing I love more than sitting on the couch and watching Netflix with Amy.

NCIS: all 13 seasons, done.
Lemony Snicket’s Series of Unfortunate Events: done (It’s wonderful, by the way.)
Blue Bloods: done.

I have been trying to talk Amy into watching LOST one more time… but I’ve had a realization.

It’s time for a change in the routine.

I’m not anti-Netflix or anti-binge watching. It’s just that so many times in the middle of the school year, we shift into survival mode. Go, go, go from one event to another. From one thing to another. From one sport, to one play, to one concert to another. As a family, it’s just complete chaos.

Are we the only family that gets like this?

I know better. I see all of you at the same events I go to.

The summer is a time to reclaim the family. Shut off the TV, break out the board games or spill open the puzzles. Face time has to be real, not virtual. The time to laugh and to catch up with each other is upon us, but it won’t just happen. I’ve got to make the push.

The church is trying to help with this by going through Blotch together in June. Every component of Western Hills will be going through this incredible little book with deep meaning. And it’s going to help to provide you with some incredible opportunities for deep conversations over dinner, or Sorry, or Scrabble or Farkle.

But it won’t just happen. You have to make it real by turning the phones and the tablets and the TV off. You’ll hear the groaning and the complaining at first. But if you hang in there, it will be worth it.

It’s time to change the rhythm of your family. And it’s going to be awesome!!!

“Blotch is a boy who lives in a kingdom where everyone has blotches on their skin. Each time a person is mean or does something wrong, another spot appears. Hoping to find someone who knows how to get rid of the spots, Blotch strikes out on a journey. At the first village he meets the Hiders, who merely cover their spots. Next, the Pretenders simply deny they even have spots. A third village is full of the Blamers, who constantly fight and blame each other for their rapidly multiplying stains. Fearful and frustrated, Blotch finally meets a kind stranger who has the solution for removing the spots permanently. But an elated Blotch is shocked to find out that the humble stranger is actually the King, and the solution requires that the King take the spots on Himself, a sacrifice that will change Blotch and his family forever.”

If you’re like me, you created images in your mind as you read this overview of the book Blotch, and you’re completely hooked and need to know how the story ends! 

A friend, who was a retired college professor when I met her, turned childrens books into life changing stories for adults whenever she led training in womens ministry. That’s what the book Blotch can do…change lives! That’s why we are engaging in a church wide Blotch study! Imagine with me car rides home from church where everyone gets to participate in the same conversation. Lunchtime talks with your friend group after Sunday services. Children gathered around at your grandchild’s birthday party as you read Blotch, the gift that you purchased for them. Lives, young and old, changed!

The study centers around a children’s book, but the messages are universal. The curriculum is designed to help “adults better understand our sinfulness, our failed attempts at fixing things and our need for Jesus.”

Buy yours now at the Blotch kiosk in the hallway at Western Hills, and sign up for a Blotch Connect Group with 100 of your friends who have already done so. Become a part of the Blotch movement in and through Western Hills Church. Books are $8 each. Buy one for yourself and one for a friend!

See you in church!

-Mari

Volunteers from Western Hills at McCarter Elementary

Western Hills!!

What a great week! The whole city wins when the Church gathers together in His name to make a difference. That’s exactly what happened last weekend, and I can’t tell you how proud I am of Western Hills.

Yes. I know. “You shouldn’t be proud,” but actually I think I can.  Check these out…

2 Thessalonians 1:4
Therefore, we ourselves speak proudly of you among the churches of God for your perseverance and faith in the midst of all your persecutions and afflictions which you endure.

2 Corinthians 7:4 
Great is my confidence in you; great is my boasting on your behalf. I am filled with comfort; I am overflowing with joy in all our affliction.

So while Paul would never boast about himself, he would boast about churches making a difference in their world in Jesus’ name. And that IS Western Hills.

We had 88 people sign up to help and about another half dozen that showed up without signing up. We had childcare workers, painters, carpenters, diggers, mulchers, and movers. We updated the teacher’s workroom, painted TWO dark hallways, put in an outdoor reading center, fixed some broken steps, painted outdoor gym equipment and washed windows.

This is just an awesome testimony to our community. We’re going to celebrate a little about it this coming Sunday, so please wear your ShareFest Shirt. We want to say thank you for representing Western Hills and Jesus so well this past weekend.

Schools are talking about it. Teens are talking about it. Adults are talking about it.

13 Reasons Why (13RW) was released directly to Netflix this month and immediately became a cultural phenomenon. Within 30 days of being released, it has become the #1 streamed show on Netflix, the most mentioned show on Twitter, and is bringing back to light a horrifying topic: suicide.

If you’re not familiar with 13RW, it is a young adult novel by Jay Asher that was first published in 2007. It tells the story of high school student Hannah Baker who takes her own life but leaves behind 13 cassette tapes delivered to the 13 people she sees as responsible for her suicide. Bullying, gossip, betrayal, rape, and cowardice by her peers all contribute to her anguish along with some ineptness by the adults around her. It’s the people who committed these acts that become the target of her last words, words that expose and condemn.

We (Parker & Grant) have been asked a lot about the show, and it’s not been an easy conversation.

At its best, 13RW brings to light the significant issues that ambush our teenagers, some may even say our society. The pain is real. The pain is deep.

At its worst, the show romanticizes suicide as a poetic option to end pain, get revenge, and have the last word.

So what are we supposed to do with it?

The decision to watch the show or not is ultimately up to you as an adult. Do your research on the show. Know that it is graphic. It is intense. It is NOT comfortable watching. There is little left to the imagination. It is NOT for kids. It could be argued that it is not for younger teens as well. Viewers need to be able to articulate and critique what they have seen.

The show sends mixed messages. Does it romanticize suicide? It absolutely could be seen that way. The directors seem more focused on ‘just telling the story’ than they are providing a hopeful alternative to suicide. The show is well-done from a production/acting perspective, but it is hard to watch. It’s moving and dramatic, but it’s not hopeful or positive. It is provocative and shocking, but it’s not meant to be mindlessly consumed as entertainment.

If you have a history of depression or have dealt with suicide, please proceed with caution. If your teens are allowed to watch it, you should, at the least, talk with them about it. Ask them what they think the message of the series is, what they think should have been done. Ask them to come up with a plan of how they should deal with those issues if they should ever come up in their own life.

We also want to offer the following thoughts to help you do exactly that, to engage in meaningful conversations about the show. It is important to be prepared to discuss the issues raised from a Christ-centered perspective. As popular as the show is, you may need to be ready to give a ‘different perspective.’

Each person has a story.
13RW shows us how each of the stories are connected and how our interaction with others matters. We have an impact – good or bad. As Christ-followers, we are called to engage redemptively with others, something that is sadly missing in 13RW.

Matthew 22:37-39
And He said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

A person’s worth shouldn’t be defined by others.
All too often, we allow our worth to be determined by others or by what we can’t do. 13RW shows this reality in horrifying detail. It also shows the ineptness of the world’s value system. Hannah Baker never understands how valuable she is to the Father. She doesn’t see how she was wonderfully and fearfully made. She never realizes that she had the chance to be a new creation. It’s a huge miss of the show but a very true reality of our world.

Ephesians 2:10
For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

There is always hope.
Christ wants to bring restoration to those in despair. Suicide never brings restoration or redemption. It only brings more pain and leaves others to cope with the aftermath. It is an eternal choice for a temporal struggle.

The Resurrection is the hope that our world needs. Jesus’ triumph over death ensures that His followers can live forever with Him in a place free from evil. Though Earth is crumbling around us as a result of sin, Heaven will be a place of rejoicing because there will be no more pain, no more tears, and no more sorrow.

Obviously, 13RW wasn’t written from a Christian worldview. To expect that would be unfair of the material. However, as a close friend told us, “I kept watching. Thinking someway, somehow, there was going to be something positive come out of this. And then it never does.”

Psalm 34:17-20
When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.

Revelation 21:4
‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

Resources:
National Suicide Hotline – 1-800-273-8255

Have you asked someone to join you for Easter services yet? Let me challenge you to do that. Today. Easter and Christmas are the two holidays that people are more likely to go to church than any other day during the year. So take advantage of that and ask a friend to join you.

We will be starting our brand new series: VIVID. We are going to explore the lenses through which we see life. At birth, we’re all given a set of lenses to see life. And while every lens is different – our backgrounds, family life, culture, values – every lens is also broken and damaged to some degree. And if the lenses we look at life through are distorted, that means our answers and conclusions about life are going to be distorted as well.

Jesus offers the best set of lenses. They are the only redemptive kind of lenses. This isn’t because He was smart or a great philosopher or a fantastic teacher. It’s because He is risen.

Here’s a quote you will hear from me on Sunday:

The core message of Christianity is NOT ‘God is love.’ It is ‘Christ IS risen.’ If Christ is not risen, then God is NOT love. He is the most cruel, vindictive, selfish, and unholy terror in history.

I’ll unpack this in greater detail on Sunday, but everything we know about God and Christianity hinges upon the resurrection. It’s the proof of everything Jesus taught and believed. But beyond that, Jesus made it so that others can share in it as well.

There are many lenses to choose from for how to see life. But it’s the resurrection of Jesus that confirms Christianity is the one true lens. I’m going to unpack that, as well as the impact of this lens on life’s big questions: What is truth? What does it mean to be human? What is reality? What is my purpose in life?

Grab a friend and join us for this series.

This is part 5 of Grant’s Reluctant Obedient devotional series.

Part 1 – The Reluctant Obedient
Part 2 – The Journey of The Reluctant Obedient
Part 3 – The Discipline of The Reluctant Obedient
Part 4 – The Crisis Point of The Reluctant Obedient

We started this journey with a C.S. Lewis quote, so it’s fitting to end it with one as well.

God became man to turn creatures into sons: not simply to produce better men of the old kind but to produce a new kind of man. It is not like teaching a horse to jump better and better but like turning a horse into a winged creature. Of course, once it has got its wings, it will soar over fences which could never have been jumped and thus beat the natural horse at its own game. But there may be a period, while the wings are just beginning to grow, when it cannot do so: and at that stage the lumps on the shoulders—no one could tell by looking at them that they are going to be wings—may even give it an awkward appearance.
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

This is what awaits the Reluctant Obedient, and it’s something Lewis knows not just intellectually but by experience. Once he pushes through the crisis of faith, there is transformation. To be clear as to what we are talking about, this refers to the spiritual blessings we have in Christ. In an instant, Christ gives us all of the privileges of being God’s sons and daughters. Spend some time in Ephesians 1 to get a grasp of the immensity of these. Adopted. Gifted. Called. Ordained. Forgiven. Made righteous. The list is impressive. It is all accessed by grace through faith in the person of Jesus.

He gives us these things, and THEN He makes us worthy of them. That’s transformation. The order is everything here. Many a Pharisee has been made by reversing this order. After He gives us these spiritual blessings, Jesus goes about the hard, messy, long work of turning us into sons and daughters worthy of these gifts.

Here’s the scandal of the thing. Even when we don’t measure up, He never takes them away. He insists on us continuing to have relationship with Him. Still adopted, still gifted, still called, still ordained.

There is a fierceness to the grace of God, and it cuts two ways. There is nothing in heaven or on the earth that can remove the Christ-follower from relationship with the Father. Nothing. Not even our own actions. And there is nothing that will stop Him from working in us and on us. Nothing.

There comes a place where the Reluctant Obedient finally realizes that Christ cares nothing about our comfort. Or even about making us kinder, nicer versions of ourselves. He is out to make us completely new and completely like Him, and comfort is the mortal enemy of transformation. We can seek comfort or experience transformation. But we can’t have both.

God developing wings on us is a process. Nothing is instant or easy. He uses everything. Good. Bad. Joy. Pain. This journey of being changed is full of awkward moments and uncomfortable silences.

Eventually the Reluctant Obedient must surrender his skepticism. Accompaning this is the realization that worship, study, prayer, serving, giving – all of those spiritual disciplines that were once seen as the actions of the super-religious – now are seen for what they really are. They are avenues to experience more transformation.

Here’s praying that we all get to that place.

This is part 4 of Grant’s “Reluctant Obedient” devotional series.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

The Reluctant Obedient can’t stay the Reluctant Obedient. Neither God nor his nature will allow him to remain in such a position forever. Something – or rather – Someone will eventually win out.

The truth is under the guise of ‘normalcy,’ there is a  slow, methodical process working to changing the Reluctant Obedient into someone else. It’s actually an incredibly slow process that will be revealed in a crisis point, a fork in the road.

If the Reluctant doesn’t eventually surrender to the Spirit at work in him and instead decide to trust his own voice or the world around him, he will eventually discover that he is no longer the Reluctant Obedient but is in fact the Justifying Delinquent. These are people with incredible insight and intelligence, leveraging those around them in order to justify their disobedience.

They can be pleasant or irritating. Their personality really has little to do with it. The larger point is that there are huge areas of sin and disobedience in their life, and they have an explanation as to why that is and why it is not as offensive as you might think.

“I’m just a blunt person. That’s how I am wired.” The excuse of using our personality to justify sinful, ungracious behavior is as old as time. What should come out of their mouth is instead is, “I’m a critical person that desperately needs the grace of Christ to change my mind and tongue.”

“We are going to be married anyway. We are already married in the eyes of God.” When what we should hear instead is, “My lust and desire for sexual pleasure is easier to listen to than the direct words of God. I desperately need the strength and wisdom of Christ for this.”

“I can’t afford to … give/serve/attend church/be in a Connect Group.” The Justifying Delinquent looks for ways to say “NO” to God and growing up: not enough time, not enough money, not enough energy, not enough… whatever. It’s always the case. Instead we should hear, “I can’t believe I GET to be a part of this story!”

And therein lies the complete irony of the Justifying Delinquent. In an effort to maintain their identity and sense of self by NOT giving in to God, they completely lose it. They settle for a darker, less alive version of who they were meant to be. They find themselves right back where they started:  miserable, discontent, and unable to hear God.

It’s like this crazy bus tour that goes right where it started. Once again, they will fill their life with noise and accomplishments that mean nothing and still leave them longing for something more. They will have a quiet discontent in their soul. Again.

This is the older brother in the Prodigal Son story. The one who stayed home and worked hard and on the outside had done the ‘right thing.’ Truth was, he was a Justifying Delinquent. He speaks the language clearly, “I have never left you. I always did what was right.”

The crisis point was the return of his prodigal brother, but his own transformation had also been a long time in the making. Just like his prodigal brother, he didn’t really love the father for who he was, for the joy of the relationship. Just like his brother, he was too focused on what he got out of the arrangement. Just like his brother, he focused on who he wasn’t, not on who he could become.

The Justifying Delinquent had none of the graciousness of his father, none of the love, and so his will finally gave out. He too had been obeying his father out of reluctance. It finally broke in him. We are left with an older brother who is just as selfish as the younger, but without the humility and insight to know that he too needs the grace of his Father. In his mind, he is justified for who he has become.

There is another path. It has bends and fog and dark patches. It is the unknown, and it is an expensive road to travel. The cost?

Surrender.