Telling the Story of Good News...

The Preacher after church

If there was one word to describe what "The Preacher" does well (other than "everything) it would be "communication." Rebekah is beyond awesome when it comes to connecting with people; be it just the one, or a room full of a thousand.

I'm sure I've already said this, but my wife is absolutely without a doubt the most interesting and inspirational preacher I have ever heard! But she also happens to be a really good writer, a wordsmith who manages to draw people in with just the right words at just the right time.

Our church newsletter - "The Happenings" - goes out twice a month, and the "Rebekah's Remarks" page is never a disappointment. A lot of preachers brush the newsletter off as hardly worth the effort, but Rebekah understands that her message is an important element of the communication package and she always takes the time to get it right.

It actually reminds me of a weekly newspaper column. The "Op-Ed column" is an art form, and when it's done well it's one of the best reads in the paper. Rebekah gets it right every time.

So I thought I'd share a couple of paragraphs with you, just to offer a different slant from a writer I truly admire. They are the first and the last from this week's "Happenings".

Dear Fine People (Rebekah writes):

We were gathered for our weekly staff meeting two weeks prior to Easter, and it was noted that "things will calm down after Easter Sunday." I don't know where such a thought came from. I was told of this so-called slow-down my first year in ministry... and I'm still waiting. By now, I know that a church sensitive to the guidance of the Holy Spirit isn't about to slow down.

Every day is Easter.

Every day affirms that the tomb is still empty.

Every day allows us to realize our world's constant need of the Light and Power of the Risen Lord....

...There is so much going on, in such a wide variety of ways, as people are being led to go deeper and wider in their relationship with God in Jesus: The world Jesus sends us out into will break; wars continue; lives are destroyed by natural disasters and random acts of evil and violence; termites will eat away in poorly reinforced walls (Inside joke - it happened at our church!).

But:

God's healing is found in the midst of brokenness...

Peace transforms conflicts...

Natural disasters will be cleaned up...

People will commit their lives to Christ...

Celebrations will be enjoyed...

Ministry and mission will be carried out...

The Bible will enlighten and strengthen...

Our church family will be faithful, as we continue to be who we were created to be - the Body of Christ for right now.

Invite your friends to church with you. They'll find out more about who we are in the next few weeks than even some of us know (Next week is the church 50th b/day celebration).

I love you - Rebekah

This coming weekend we celebrate 50 years as a church, witnessing to God's grace here in the Brandon community. Stay tuned, there's bound to be a blog post that reflects some of the excitement!

- DEREK

"The Preacher's Husband" gets some press!

I know this makes two posts in three days; but if stuff happens, stuff happens! One of my freelance writing gigs is with FOCUS Magazine here in the Tampa/Plant City/Lakeland region. The latest issue has the following article about this blog. I think you'll find it interesting.

You can either read it here - and I've included the mug shot they use - or click on this link to read the article in the on-line version of the magazine. Either way, read it! (If you follow the link, you'll have to click on the text of the magazine to bring the article up to size)

- DEREK

Choosing Who to Follow in 2011
Two years ago I started my first blog. The eponymous site is an on-line journal, where people look over my shoulder and read what’s going on with my life.

I’ve posted over 600 entries to date, around five new items per week. The experiment has generated some interest, somewhere around 1,000 hits every month. You can check it out if you’re interested, just log in via DerekMaul.com and click on “Today’s Blog Entry.”

My blog features great photographs, plus some of my best writing – the same kind of content presented on this page. But it’s a journal, so most people don’t even bother to take the first look. The sites people go to in droves tend to feature scandal, controversy, juicy gossip, famous people or writing of more topical interest.

Well I’m not that interested in negatives. But it does make sense to write about topics that generate attention. So I scratched my head and came up with a subject I’m well qualified to address but may well raise a few eyebrows. The new blog is called, “The Preacher’s Husband;” you can find it at www.preachershusband.blogspot.com.

Bingo! I had more hits in the first couple of days than I'd hoped for in a month." It turns out that people are interested in what it means for a guy to be married to the pastor of a church.

To tell the truth, I’d like to have known the answer to that question back when Rebekah and I started dating. But, occasional incidents of prejudicial thinking and lapses into male chauvinism aside, the overwhelming weight of my experience has been positive. I’ve been married to a preacher for close to three decades – and I have the stories to prove it!

No stereotype:

Probably the best thing about the preacher’s husband gig is the absence of stereotypical expectations. Simply put, people don’t have preconceptions regarding what I’m supposed to do: there is no well-worn path to follow.

We may be in Twenty-first Century, but I still talk with minister’s wives who say they’re expected to, “Play the piano, teach Sunday-school, run the women’s group, clean the church kitchen, organize Vacation Bible School and be their husband’s secretary.”

Not so for yours truly - because nobody knows quite what to expect from the preacher’s husband. True, I am excluded from invitations directed to “ministers and their wives”, but the beauty of not occupying a culturally pre-assigned role is the freedom it gives me to simply follow Jesus.

My mother-in-law, Nell Alexander, gave me this advice when Rebekah was called to her first church. “Derek: love the Lord, love the preacher, love the people. If you get that right, everything else should fall into place.”

The other thing she said was, “If the preacher brings home extra folk for dinner unannounced, you can always cope by cooking extra biscuits.”

My freedom has given me pause. So much of what we do in life, cradle to grave, happens under the unyielding scrutiny of social norms. Many of these standards have less to do with what is “right”, or “Christian” than they have to do with what has become de rigueur for North American culture.

That’s why neither my wife nor I complain about the challenges of our non-standard life. Everything we’ve done, from my years as stay-at-home dad to her position as senior pastor at a vibrant church, has been free from the strictures of cultural stereotype.

The apostle Paul put it this way: “If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the universe, why do you live as if you still belonged to the world? Why do you submit to regulations?” (Colossians 2:20).

It’s a good question for this New Year.

- DEREK

The Preacher Makes Me Laugh

"This day is holy to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the LORD is your strength.” (Nehemiah 8:10) 

My wife - Rev Rebekah Maul - can be hilarious in the pulpit. The best of it is, she doesn't do it on purpose.

• She doesn't tell jokes
• She never says, "Hey, Derek, this one's going to crack them up..."
• She hasn't taken classes to cultivate comic timing
• She never scans old editions of Readers Digest for funny stories
• She's not a subscriber to Sermons-to-make-your-people-smile.com (don't try to find it on line - I made that up!) 

She simply searches the scriptures, asks God to guide her, puts in hours of research, lets what's on her heart spill out, shares stories that help to illustrate the meaning of her message, and passes on what God has graciously taught her during the process of preparation.

But - almost without fail - you're not going to attend church at First Presbyterian in Brandon without running into some level of hilarity, and that includes the 20 minutes or so when Rebekah preaches.

(It doesn't hurt that Rebekah and Tim - our other pastor - have developed a natural love-and-respect-based Sunday-morning banter that couldn't begin to be rehearsed, but that's another post!)

I honestly believe that most of the laughter has everything to do with joy, and probably honesty too... and I believe humility has a role to play now that I come to think about it.

JOY: We've all heard of "Holy Laughter". Some "charismatic" churches encourage a corporate laughter that's advertised as a "gift of the Spirit", not unlike tongues, and it's often associated with healing. I think there's some truth to that, but I don't believe the experience needs to be rote or affected or manipulative. "Charismatic" means "Grace Gifted". First Brandon is very much a grace-gifted body of believers, we're most certainly Spirit-filled, and laughter at our church has always been associated with healing.

Story: When we first arrived - in 1996 - several people told us that the experience of coming to First Presbyterian in Brandon felt like attending a funeral. There had been several years of grief and heartache. People didn't smile in church, let alone laugh. Well, a couple of weeks after Rebekah's installation there was a vote to install a new slate of elders.

"It's unanimous," Rebekah said, "one hundred percent." Then, she quipped (because she can't help herself), "I understand it definitely wasn't unanimous when you called me...!"

There was a long, uneasy, silence...

... Until Ralph, sitting on the front row and gradually turning red as a beet as he tried - unsuccessfully - to hold it all in, suddenly let out a loud guffaw and started to laugh! Seconds later the sanctuary erupted into an extended cacophony of hilarity. The uproar lasted a staggering three minutes.

What Rebekah said wasn't that funny. But the laughter was due to three years of grief and pain finally beginning to be dealt with. It was people split open, ready for healing, and receiving the salve of the Holy Spirit. Holy laughter.

We've been laughing ever since.

I guess I didn't get around to discussing the honesty and the humility part of this topic. I'll pick up the discussion next time.

Full with JOY - DEREK

Love The Church Staff!

Christmas Brunch with The Black family - foreground - and my parents...   Last night I was in conversation with some old friends who have been active in church all their lives. They live in another city, and currently attend a "non-denominational" fellowship.

They seemed amazed when we shared the story of our associate pastor's big Christmas surprise.

"He was at your house Christmas morning?" they questioned. I'm not sure, but I think their mouths were hanging open just a little.

"Tim and Kelly always come over for Christmas brunch," Rebekah said. "They bring their boys, we exchange presents...."

She stopped, realizing how often churches experience conflict in their pastoral staff: Preachers who can't work together, petty jealousies, personality conflicts, sabotage, territorial disputes, heavy-handed supervision, taking sides, church splits....

"We just love each other," Rebekah said. "Tim's like a brother."

Love is all we need:

Six and a half years ago, when our church was searching for an addition to the pastoral staff, I was just as interested in the potential spouse. I lobbied hard for calling a pastor who's husband - or wife - loved Jesus, loved the preacher, and loved the church.

Because it's bunk when they say, "A candidate's husband or wife should not be a factor when calling a minister...." Like it or not, it matters hugely! Churches need pastors with committed family support and they need a spouse who feels called 100%. That doesn't mean "two for the price of one", so much as it means "one with the heart of two."

Consequently, while it's awesome that Rebekah loves Tim, it's a wonderful gift from God that I love Kelly too.

Advent Conspiracy:
That's why this year's Advent Conspiracy worked out so well. Kelly had been thinking about getting Tim a new guitar pretty much all year long; she stuffed the occasional $5 bill in an envelope just to see what might happen. It's tough to pull surprises when your husband pays the bills.

By the fall she had enough to think about shopping. That's where I came in. We started looking, pulled in a few more contributing gifters, and the plot moved into high gear. One day Kelly and I managed to sneak off while Tim was stuck at a multi-hour beach wedding and we got the job done.

That was before Thanksgiving, so the guitar (and hard shell case) remained in my care until Tim and Kelly (Micah and Liam in tow) showed up for Christmas brunch.

We pulled it off! Tim was in shock. Score for us!

• God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love because he first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister. (1 John 4:16-21)