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Today, Christians will have ashes imposed upon their foreheads in Ash Wednesday services held around the world.  It is a holy day, this first day of Lent.  And an important start to keeping Lent holy.

This is a day in which we recall how fleeting the nature of this life is.  The ashes themselves are the burned remains of the palms used in last year’s Palm Sunday service.  We recall with great joy Christ’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.  In chronological terms, it was but a week before his crucifixion.  How quickly things change.  How quickly our earthly joys turn to ashes.

“You are but dust, and to dust you shall return.”

The only permanence in this life or the after-life is the sacred. It is in acknowledging our transitory nature in this world, that we come to Ash Wednesday beginning a season of penitence.

I wish you a most holy Lent.  And whatever you do…

Don’t Give Up This Podcast for LENT!!!

Seriously! Don’t! This week we’re talking about the sometimes under-observed time of Lent. As we approach Ash Wednesday and the following 40-ish days until Easter, Aron and Mark turn their attention to a part of the church year that prepares us for the foundation of the Christian faith – the death and resurrection of Christ. What is Lent? What Lent isn’t. What Lent can and should be…

As I write this I am seated in the pew at All Saints Episcopal Church in Fort Worth, Texas. I am attending the worship service preceding our special Diocesan convention tasked with appointing leadership to our empty leadership roles.

Last November, Ft Worth’s then Bishop Iker led many of the Diocese’s churches away from the national denomination. Those of us who’ve chosen to remain, meet today to build our future. The Presiding Bishop is here to pray with us.

It’s an exciting day, full of hope and praise.

The Lord is present in His sanctuary. Let us praise the Lord!

Service is starting. More later!

A handbook for marital success

In this week’s PopeCast in which we discussed Weddings, I made mention of a marriage workshop that Suzanne and I attended which we found to be quite valuable.  When we recorded “A PopeCast Wedding,” I could not for the life of me remember the name of the program.  Well as promised, here it is: The Marriage Course.

Produced by the same folks that brought you Alpha, The Marriage Course is not counseling between the married couple and a third party.  Rather, it is a guided study designed to provide the married couple tools to better communicate, better connect with one another.  It’s non-denominational, too!

The Marriage Course is designed to build, strengthen, and even mend marriages. It helps married couples learn practical tools to build a strong and healthy marriage. Over eight evenings, couples have the chance to discuss important issues often ignored in the rush of daily life.

Our class was held over a period of eight weeks.  It was rather intense.  Despite that I would have characterized ours as a good marriage before participating in the course, I will say that it created an environment between the two of us allowing for improved, more effective communication.  The study walked us through ways to listen in such a manner that we heard the needs of the other.  The course supported my desire to be a better husband and continues to support me on my journey.

I spoke to two men several months after our course was completed.  With their wives, they attended the same sessions as Suzanne and I did.  Both shared with me that their marriages were profoundly affected by their involvment in the Marriage Course.  Each couple had been on the road to separation and perhaps even divorce.  Today, they remain together with their spouses and report happier, healthier marriages.   So one might say that the Marriage Course helps make marriages less coarse.

Sorry about that.

I’m a fan of the Marriage Course.  Check out the website and find a course near you! Or, if there’s not one in your area, share it with your church leadership.  It’s a terrific resources for churches to offer.

Aron Head
Twitter + PopeCastAron

I’m traveling today, on my way to a week long training event. It’s been a stressful weekend, capping off what was a rather harried work week. I had a number of things to finish up for the office Friday and Saturday while at the same time squeezing in social and family time.

Worse, my flight schedule was such that it prevented me from attending services today.

Welcome to my short, tense weekend.

Exiting the security area where I was fortunate enough to be offered the opportunity to strip down to my undershirt, I passed a man sitting on the floor in the center of the terminal. Airport security men stood on either side of him. I thought his hands were cuffed at first.

Arrested?

Then I realized his hands were just behind him, supporting him.

He was in distress. In fact as I walked by, he wept. Desperate, terrible sobs.

I continued to my gate.

It was not until I stopped to arrange my bags for the flight that it dawned on me. I passed this man as if he was nothing. Really, he didn’t register with me at all.

I don’t know if the man was drunk, suffering a break down, or had received some bit of crushing news.

What I do know is that I did nothing.

At once, I stopped and prayed asking for the Lord’s healing and comfort for this man and the strength to move through his pain. I also asked that my eyes be opened to the suffering of those about me that I might be a better instrument of Christ in the world.

I am reminded that I’m not just on a journey through this airport.

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree!

Here it is Christmas Eve already.  My shopping has been finished since last Saturday morning.  It’s been wrapped and under the tree since Saturday afternoon.  Much of what usually gives me stress during this season, is simply not at play this year.

What a terrific blessing.

After work last night, The Wife and I settled out onto the deck and enjoyed a fire under the stars.  It was a lovely, crisp night, still and quiet.  It was a rare moment for the two of us.

I could very nearly discern the distant lowing of cattle.

It was hard not to be mindful of such a night more than two thousand years ago when our savior was born.

At Christmas, we all sing of the miraculous birth of God incarnate, Jesus the Christ.  We cry out ave’s to His virgin mother.  We even sing about the shepherds and magi who came to kneel before his manger throne (thanks for that phrase, Mark).

Very few recognize another miracle present that day.

The miracle of Joseph, Christ’s earthly father.

Certainly there are men today who raise other men’s children as their own.  In our culture, that is.  Travel to the Middle East of Christ’s time and the story is very different.   I can scarce imagine the level of scorn heaped upon an unwed mother of those days, much less the serious physical punishments offered as well.

Stoning.  Burning.  Your choice.

Men of Joseph’s time were bred to think of the honor and sanctity of their family’s.  To marry a woman carrying the child of another?

Unthinkable.

It is, then, a man of remarkable courage who answers God’s call, takes Mary for his wife, and raises her son as his own.

I have always been amazed by this act of blind faith and bravery.  Yet we don’t really celebrate Joseph much at Christmas.  It often seems in the telling of the nativity, Joseph’s presence is a rather matter-of-fact affair.  It’s like he just drove the car – er, donkey – to Bethlehem, but Mary and God did all the work.

Believe me, I’m not diminishing anyone’s roles here.  I just think we need to be heaping love on Big Joe as well.  Our nativity scenes would look a lot different without Joey.

Joseph  protected his family (Matthew 2:14), he provided for them (Matthew 13:55), he loved his son.  We live in an age where so many fathers fall short of their responsibilities.  Either they choose not to support their children emotionally, financially, or are completely absent from their lives – or even worse – they are ever-present with abuse.

All fathers should learn from and be guided by Joseph’s example.

We are not just provided the miracle of the virgin birth on Christmas.  We are given the fine example of the holy family.   Just as Christ walked, we struggle to follow.  Likewise, we should revere, love, and protect our children and spouses just as Joseph looked after his family.  These are our role models.

All of this crackled in my head last night just as the fire did in its pit.

May God bless you and yours this Christmas and throughout the coming year.

The Mark Andrew PopeCast with Mark Andrew Pope and Aron Head

Early this morning, the episode one of the Mark Andrew PopeCast rolled out onto the interwebs.  Timely and topical, we chat about the season of Advent.  Mark and I have been working on the podcast for three months now with lots of content recorded.  It’s interesting then that this is the subject that’s stuck with me more than any other.

We recorded this one last Thursday.  Ever since, it’s been on my mind.

Maybe it’s because I knew it would be our first show to drop after last week’s zero episode? Perhaps it’s because we’re currently in the season of Advent?  Or maybe we hit on something that’s gnawing hard on me.

I think it’s the latter.

In the course of our discussion, we verbalized some ideas that I’ve not ever put into words before.  They’ve been thoughts I’ve had swirling about in my head, but saying them aloud?  Sharing them with a friend and hurling them out into the ether?  I’m finding the effect startling.

I am conflicted, you see.  Advent has meaning to me.  I value this season.  I don’t; however, believe that the season as laid out in the liturgy has the desired impact on most congregants.

I am not a person who believes that just because we have always done something in a given manner necessarily mandates that we should always proceed in such fashion.  Nor am I someone who is prepared to throw away hundreds and hundreds of years of tradition to facilitate the comfort of the faithful.

Tradition has value.  History informs the present.  Regardless, I can’t help but wonder… should there be an easing of the way when it comes to Advent?  Do we lose what’s important compromising with the secular season or do we gain a peace of the spirit?

Can there be a place in the middle?

Here’s my struggle: I don’t know.

I’m praying about it.

Chips & Salsa Ministry

I came home from podcasting Sunday night to find a brown paperbag on my doorstep.  Relieved that it wasn’t a flaming bag of poo, I brought it into the house where I found that it was from the big – dare I say ‘mega’ – church down the road, Fielder Road Baptist Church. The first item of note within was a large bag of tortilla chips alongside a jar of salsa.  On the jar, the label proclaimed: “Spice up your life, go to church.”

Oh man, this is how you bring sinners to Christ.  Seriously.  Whoever thought this up is brilliant.

I am not the Lone Ranger amongst my fellow Texans when I confess my abiding affection for chips and salsa.  Most of us feel pretty strongly that these two items should be offered at all restaurants no matter the hour or the cuisine.  We go for Chinese?  We wonder where the chips and salsa are.  Sure those eggrolls are nice, but…

Waiting for our pancakes, why can’t we have a little hot sauce and a tortilla? The Mexican places that’ll bring a basket of chips and a cup of red to the table at six a.m. are where the angels eat, I tell you!

I digress.

Usually when a missionary or outreach representative comes a-knocking, I’m annoyed.  Sad to say, but it’s true.  I’m not a fan of the uninvited church folk proselytizing on my doorstep anymore than I am of the door-to-door salesman.  First – in the case of Christians, anyway – I’ve already got what they’re selling.  Second, I can inevitably count on them interrupting what I was doing with a rather uninspired sales pitch.

When I’m not there, or on occasions when I don’t answer the door (yeah, I’m that guy), I’ll find materials jammed into or taped onto the door.  Some of that stuff looks like it came off a mimeograph machine, the experience leaving me none too pleased for the visit.

That’s what is so wonderful about this program.

I like chips.  I like salsa.  So already they’ve got my attention.  Grabbing me there, I read the message attached to the sack with a chip clip (another useful item) written in both English and Spanish inviting us to worship services on Sunday.  A DVD, a full color postcard inviting us to Christmas Eve services, and a magazine professionally produced by the church with articles about the many different programs and ministries offered were all included.

The package landed at our door because we recently moved to the neighborhood.

What a wonderful welcome.

So often in our outreach efforts we forget that people don’t respond well to cold-calls.  Few in this day and age are prepared to understand at the front door that our risen Lord is a miraculous gift provided each of us.  For that kind of contact to be successful, it takes more than a friendly face and a pamphlet to win that soul for Jesus.  As much as we may be loathe to admit it, it takes some salesmanship.

We cringe at that term, but Christ and His apostles were salesmen.  Honest salesmen to be sure.  They were selling salvation for the low, low price of abiding faith in and adoration of the Most High.

The imaginative folks at Fielder Road Baptist Church realize that, masterfully breaking the ice, making the visit memorable.  Worthwhile.  Long after the chips and salsa are gone, I will remember them by their chip clip and how pleased I was at the gift.

Truly, an excellent idea expertly implemented.  I will be sharing this with the next Outreach committee I work on.

I can’t help but notice that the salsa provided was labeled “medium” in its heat.  I’d recommend amending the label thus: So hot it’ll burn the sin right out of you!

If I wasn’t a hard and fast Episcopalian, I would totally visit this church. I bet they have salsa and a basket of chips right there in the pew!

Ok – well, today is the day of the grand entrance of the “Mark Andrew PopeCast”!!  You can go to www.markandrewpope.com or catch it on iTunes or check it out here at the Podbean website.  Basically, Aron and I have taken a few moments to introduce ourselves and hopefully entice you to respond to our blogging and podcasting or maybe even subscribe to the podcast.

Here is the December schedule for upcoming podcasts:
December 7: Our First Annual Advent Podcast
December 15: The PopeCast Christmas edition – with a new original *free* downloadable Christmas song
December 22: Mark’s Audio CD Liner notes from “For You Alone” [Part 1] 
December 29: Mark’s Audio CD Liner notes from “For You Alone” [Part 2]  

And remember, Mark’s CD, “For You Alone” is a wonderful Christmas gift!  (I’ll even gift wrap it for you for free!!)

I can’t believe it is already December… what a year it has been!!