being the bride: how the church is equipped for battle

Posted on by October 5, 2023

Maybe like you, during the beginning of the Covid mayhem I went for weeks without seeing anyone outside my immediate family. But then the joke was over, the jig was up — and in a span of 48 hours, four different people stopped by the Lighthouse to either borrow books, return books, or purchase books.

One of those friends also dropped off a little bag of chocolates, at which point the sun broke through the clouds and angels started singing, almost.

being the bride: how the church is equipped for battle in the midst of the wilderness

I ate one of the chocolates at my desk that afternoon. Then, in the spirit of (cough) research, I tried another one to properly compare the varieties. And that one had almonds – and I thought, well, yes, I could use more protein right now.

So there went the neighborhood.

I’ve gone days, weeks, months, whole seasons without chocolate or any kind of sugar. But this wasn’t one of those seasons. Nope, this season was a weird one, when we all fasted from a bunch of things, but sugar probably wasn’t one of them.

We fasted from friends. From gatherings. From normal activities, from typical routines and appointments and meetings. From running to the grocery store whenever we felt like it for whatever we needed. And we didn’t really know where this was going, or when the fast would be over.

I called Grandma to check in on her, and she was good – watching for moose, watching the news, and watching her cat, mostly. Her church is small and doesn’t have online services, and she missed people.

“I haven’t seen your dad in ages,” she said. “He came by the other day to drop off fuel, but he didn’t come in. Just put the receipt in the door.” (Did I mention she misses people?)

“Grandma…he can’t visit with you,” I reminded her. “He can’t expose you to anything he might’ve been around.”

“Well, I know that,” she scoffed, “but I’d rather visit!” She’s super cute. She’s also totally related to my girls; I heard both Cham and Iree in her frustration.

She told me about quarantines when she was young. They were different, of course; you might say they were actually constitutional. They were specified to certain families and households, not a global lockdown that convinced, coerced, or manipulated everyone into house arrest. In the early ’40s when she was ten, Grandma’s family was quarantined because she had scarlatina.

“They put a big red sign on the door, telling people to stay away. I don’t think they do that anymore.”

Nope, they just tell us all to stay home, and nobody comes close enough to see a sign. But I thought of the red ribbon we tacked to our front door that year – maybe you hung one, too – for Passover and Easter. It, too, was a sign of sorts, representing the protection of the Lord from destruction.

And that is the season we are still in: a season of rest, protection, and healing. Of quiet waiting. Of trusting in the Lord’s covering and guidance, watching for His direction, and wondering what is coming next.

For the Israelites, what happened next was the Exodus. And here’s what happened:

When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near. For God said, “Lest the people change their minds when they see war and return to Egypt.” 

– Exodus 13:17, ESV

God didn’t show them the easy way out. He knew better.

But He didn’t only do it because the Israelites would’ve returned to slavery. And He didn’t only do it because the Israelites would’ve cowered from the war ahead.

He did it because they were called to something much bigger than they imagined, and they needed to learn how to live up to it.

But God led the people around by the way of the wilderness toward the Red Sea. And the people of Israel went up out of the land of Egypt equipped for battle.

– Exodus 13:18, ESV

They needed to learn who (and Who) they were dealing with. They needed to learn that children of God are a force to be reckoned with, not slaves to the expectations of others – or, sometimes worse, their own expectations. Sometimes our expectations are far too low.

This solitude from gathering for those weeks (or for some, months) was like a fast, realigning us, walking us through a wilderness that forced us to seek Him for direction. We can’t do things the way we’ve always done. In many ways, that is bringing long-needed correction.

How will we work without our office and coworkers? How will we learn without the school and the systems? How will we find information when we know we can’t trust the media?

How will we be the church outside the building?

We can rest and surrender, or push fruit and strive – but only one equips us for battle.

We talk a lot about “being the church” and yes, we need to be the church. But we don’t have to spend so much time thinking about how to be the church if we just focus on being the Bride, with our eyes on Him instead of trying to recreate the way we’re used to doing things. “Being the church” tends to move our focus outward: creating (or re-creating) programs, meetings, events, and those are all good things. But they are not the cornerstone; they are extra stones. They aren’t foundational, they are auxiliary.

It reminds me of when I first started homeschooling our oldest. We called it “homeschooling” but we weren’t truly homeschooling at all, because all I had ever known was public school. And that’s what we did at home: we re-created public schooling, from home. It sucked. It was not true homeschooling.

We didn’t start truly homeschooling until I got comfortable enough to buck all the preconceived ideas I had about how school ought to look and just start enjoying learning with our kids. Because school wasn’t the point; education was. And I was missing the forest for the trees.

If we just tweak our routines and programs rather than surrender entirely to what He is prompting us toward, we might be doing the same thing. We cannot be equipped for battle if we’re clinging so tightly to old ways that we cannot catch onto the new thing God is telling us to do.

And it’s hard; it takes time to learn new ways, to rip out old work. But it takes way more time to keep pushing through on something that bears fruit at 10% when it should be bearing fruit at 100%.

It takes even more time when we realize that we should’ve spent that time and effort in an entirely different direction. The best time to obey is when God first tells us. The second best time to obey is right now.

God led the Israelites – just like He’s leading us – by a winding way so they would start walking in their identity instead of returning to slavery. It was for their protection that they didn’t know where they were going. “Lest the people change their minds” – He still protects us from knowing what we can’t handle. The unknowing is for our good, and we can rest in that as long as our eyes are on Him first.

People notice the church being the church all the time. But they will stop what they’re doing to watch the church who is being the Bride, because the Bride knows who she is – protected, obedient, and surrendered, but she’s also equipped for battle.

working too hard: a gentle reminder to parents & schools

Posted on by September 13, 2021

Dear schools,

In the most gentle, loving way I can possibly say this: Lay off.

I’m not talking to individual teachers. Several of my loved ones are teachers who have scrambled to balance the needs of their students with the dictates of the schools, administrators, and governments they work for – no easy task. It’s no secret that those needs and dictates aren’t always in complement, and the teachers are stuck in the middle.

working too hard: a gentle reminder to parents and schools during quarantine

And some schools are doing a beautiful job of supporting their parents, students, and families with flexibility, tact, and grace. I’m not talking to those schools, either.

I am saying this to the system as a whole who, in some cases, is dictating and assigning “requirements” to parents and children at an alarming and irresponsible rate. So – administrators, schools, and bureaucrats, with as much grace and love as I can muster:

You all need to knock it off. You’re working too hard, and in many cases you’re asking parents to work too hard, also.

Parents have so much on their plates right now without the added reams of paperwork, assignments, instructions, zoom calls, emails, google hangouts, and other virtual meetings you are giving them to replicate the work you would normally have their kids do in school.

A parent’s job has never been, and is not now, to replicate what schools do with children.

Ideas and resources are wonderful. Offering livestream or mobile support is great. But telling parents they are “required” (oh really?) to give spelling tests and math quizzes and dozens of assignments per day…is not.

Most parents have more than one child in the system. And most of those children have more than one teacher at school. Not one of those classes or teachers are the center of the child’s educational universe.

Parents of just two or three kids are getting upwards of fifty emails a day. I have one friend whose children have no less than a dozen daily zoom meetings. I have other friends with little kids – we’re talking kindergarteners and first graders – who have been given so many instructions and assignments and “requirements” (that word is in quotes on purpose) that it’s delusional.

These schools – and yes, some individual teachers – are revealing a grossly overinflated sense of their own importance. At the same time, they’re exposing a grossly underinflated understanding of both education and priorities in this time of crisis. It is utterly misguided.

Here’s the truth: Parents have known how to teach their children long before schools came along to make them feel they were unqualified to do it.

All this busywork may be well intended. Or, it may be meant to further press home the message that many schools have always given parents: You don’t know what you’re doing with your kids. Let us tell you what to do.

And maybe some parents are believing that message more than ever, while also trying to juggle suddenly working from home, suddenly dealing with new routines, suddenly losing their jobs, suddenly missing out on normal activities, and suddenly being low on toilet paper or other basics.

But maybe other parents are realizing that schools were never very good at replacing parents in the first place.

Maybe there are parents out there who are suddenly seeing the absolute waste of time all the busywork is. Maybe there are parents who would rather just read to their kids, or teach them to garden, or show them how to balance the checkbook. Maybe there are parents who could get more of their own work done with less stress and still have the presence of mind to play a game with their kids during the day if they weren’t so exhausted and stressed out from the added burden of schools presuming to tell them what to do…and how to do it…and when to do it…and how often.

I’m not saying that schools don’t have their place. I’m saying that the home is not one of them.

Further burdening parents in a time of crisis is not one of them.

Telling parents what to do with their children as though the schools make the requirements and rules is not one of them.

Consuming the time of families and dictating the schedules of much of their day is not one of them.

The schools that are doing this have forgotten their place. To clarify, here it is:

Schools work for the parents. Not the other way around.

And the only way for schools to work with families and help them through this time of crisis is to take a step back and remember that.

Kudos to the schools, teachers, and administrators who are doing that. Bless you.

But parents, if you’re dealing with the other kind of schools? Remember, they work for you. You know your kids better than they do. You make the rules for your kids and your family.

And if you need to trash the busywork, skip the tests, play hooky for a while, and just take some time to get your feet under you as we all navigate this season, do it.

Your kids might forget half the stuff they did in school before Spring Break, but they’ll never forget living through this.

Your kids are learning every day. Probably more than you realize, and definitely more than you give yourself credit for. They are learning from you, from the world around them, and from the atmosphere you create in your home. This has always been the case.

_____

Parents, want this reminder somewhere you can see it often? Download a free printable bookmark here and free printable 5×7 here.

your kids are learning every day

overturning: when confinement unleashes an uncontainable church

Posted on by September 14, 2021

It had been two weeks since I sat in a normal church service. And that Sunday I ended up with wet pants, which, for the record, isn’t normal anyway.

I was holding a restless 15-month-old who has outgrown his ability to snuggle through worship and sleep through sermons. So you can see where I’m going.

overturning: when confinement unleashes an uncontainable church

Nope, little Kavanagh was a big boy now, and wanted to crawl in the aisle, hang over the chairs in front of us, flirt with the people behind us, and purloin all the pens and New Guest forms he could get ahold of.

Friends, he could not be contained. And when I tried to nurse him to sleep during worship that day, he suddenly detached himself so violently that I had to make the split-second decision to either a) expose myself to the entire west side of the congregation, or b) cover myself in time, overturning the cup of water I was holding.

It was a cold, impromptu baptism for both of us.

I brushed off as much as I could and hightailed it to the nursing moms’ room, where I had spent many services over the last ten years. That tiny little room, recently upgraded into a beautiful, soft-lit haven, was a refuge when we couldn’t be contained in the huge sanctuary and needed the comfort and privacy of smaller walls to hold us.

The service streamed through the wall-mounted screen and my attention went back and forth from it to Kavanagh, occupying himself with the toys, or – even better, according to him – the contents of my purse.

I rescued the things I didn’t want him to have, like my sunglasses, the charging cord, and a bar of chocolate. I left him the eight pens (that many?), one fork (sigh), and also the mints, which he couldn’t open. But no matter, he found one that had probably rolled around loose for several months and popped it in his mouth. I let him have it, and started eating the chocolate.

That was two weeks earlier. None of us imagined what things would be like shortly after, when the world went on lockdown.

I felt a little guilty because I knew this was a huge transition for many families, but it was pretty normal life for us. You know that meme that said, “When you find out your normal daily lifestyle is called a quarantine” and the puppet character looks awkwardly away? That’s us.

We already work from home. We already homeschool. Most of our ministry is from home or through social media. And after being self-employed writers for almost two years at that point, we were already used to not having predictable income.

So when Kav stabbed me in the eye Monday night with not just one, but two pens (because in a house of writers, pens are everywhere), I suddenly had a small dose of what many of you were feeling: Hemmed in, confined, unable to do my normal stuff. At a loss. I had to spend the day with it patched, resting, not able to read or write enough to get any work done. 

Quarantine day 4? 5? Whatever. Pirate day. In which we...
A) dress like a pirate
B) talk like a pirate
C) learn how terrible pirates actually were and why we DON’T want to emulate them
D) wear a patch for the fun of it because your toddler stabbed you in the eye the night before with not one, but two pens.
I got D but don’t recommend it.
Both pens were capped, praise God, but I have some scratches and one is right across the center. SO MUCH PAIN. Feeling much better today though and hopefully we’ll be back on track tomorrow. But no storytime from me today, friends.
I mean, me hearties. Argh.
xo

I had no depth perception, but eventually I got the hang of eating without making a mess all over myself. When I scrolled social media, it took me a few tries to accurately hit the “like” button. First world problems, for real.

The next day I was mostly back to normal (eyes heal super fast, praise God) and I had more to do at home than I know what to do with…which was fine, because I’m the introvertiest introvert I know. No plans? Everything’s cancelled? You mean, for the good of our community and the health of our loved ones we have to stay in our house full of books and do the work we love to do?

Well. Introvert’s paradise. Some of us were made for such a time as this.

Because it’s not only a virus that is germinating.

This is a fertile time for so many good things, and God is birthing movements and boldness and unrealized giftings in His people at an accelerated rate. The more we cooperate with that germination, the more we flip the other on its head, as God did with Joseph’s capture and imprisonment, using it for the saving of many people.

And God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors.

– Genesis 45:7

In this season God is calling His people to outgrow their ability to passively doze through worship and sleep through sermons.

As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.

– Genesis 50:20

We were an entire world of people living in an imprisonment of sorts, a whole kingdom of people alive who had the same opportunity to hear God in how He wants us to overturn these circumstances, to take what the enemy means for harm and use it for good, doing whatever it is that we each are best at for the good of those around us.

Some of us are bakers, and we bake.

Some of us are builders, and we build.

Some of us are teachers, and we teach.

I am a reader, a writer, and an intercessor, and I did those things, pivoting in ways to reach out spiritually and emotionally when we couldn’t reach out physically. And let’s face it, I’ve never been great at reaching out physically anyway.

But nothing we did then or do now stays in a building.

God is offering this as a time to step up in bolder ways, using these callings for His kingdom at a level that I would normally brush aside as too much. But this is all too much.

We’ve lived isolated for a long time, and this new situation only makes physically obvious what has been true for a generation. The lockdowns are just an honest picture of how we’ve lived for years – head down, looking at our phones and laptops, distracted and closed off more than ever, missing the world around us.

The time to overturn that is here.

I heard a lot of people complain about how terrible people were with the selfishness of hoarding, the panic-raising of the media, and the drama-seeking of the immature. And I saw some of that. But mostly in the beginning of the lockdowns, I saw the opposite.

I saw people freely give of their time and resources to help educate and feed other people’s children. I saw businesses declare grace for unpaid bills. I saw business owners continue to pay their employees in spite of their doors being closed.

I saw an entire community of creatives rise up to reach out with their giftings, bringing warmth and connection in the face of isolation – singing, acting, reading, reciting poetry, giving free lessons, sharing what they know with others. Building the kingdom.

And even after we saw that it was a sham, that the numbers of sick and dying were inflated with unreliable tests and a media who had other agendas than the truth in mind, we still saw those things. Even in the face of Communist mandates that attempt to criminalize singing in church, or attending classes without an experimental injection (even as a remote student, because it was never about science), we see people overturning these situations for the Kingdom.

They are not confined to the walls around them. They are cooperating with the movement of a Spirit who crashes against the walls, uncontainable.

We’ve waved adios to normal so much over the last two years that it feels like nothing else will surprise us. But if the church will keep its eyes open, praying, listening, leaning in hard to God’s calling for each of us in this time, we won’t be surprised anymore.

We’ll be the ones who overturn this, because the church was never meant to be a building. It was always meant to be unleashed.