A Bishop Janitor Street Sweeper

Talking through a Pipe Because Place Was Bugged!

Here is a story of Bi-Vocational ministry, out of necessity for the underground church during persecution.

Our western model of church will change. Because it's based on the culture and community liking us. It all changes when they no longer see any value or good in the Kingdom of Christ, are in fact hostile to the scriptures. Properties will not be zone for churches, public facilities will not rent to churches (common now) and Social media and YouTube will not even be on our radar anymore as tools. Then what?

What do we have left in our tool case?

I think the early church already showed us, and Russian communistes made it applicable again for their time. It could easily happen again.

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"There was this guy, František Mikloško, who’s in the book. He was a part of the underground church, the second generation. It turns out he was the personal assistant to the underground bishop, Ján Chryzostom Korec. And František took me to Cardinal Korec’s apartment. John Paul II made Korec a cardinal after the fall of communism. But for many years, he was an elevator repairman and street sweeper, even though the communists knew that he was really a bishop.
František took me to the apartment where Korec had lived and told me about the meetings that he would have there with his flock. He showed me a tube, a sort of plastic tube mounted on a base that allowed it to spin. It was like a PVC pipe, maybe six inches across. And when people come to visit him, they would sit across from Korec at the table and they would speak to each other through the pipe, Korec would speak into the pipe and the listener would have his ear there, because they knew the apartment was bugged.
One day, the secret police came and tried to pull him off the street to arrest him. And the bishop was strong and wouldn’t get into the car with him. And he put his arms out straight against the side of the car. František was just standing there watching this bishop fight the secret police… and he prevailed!"
- Ron Dreher

Protesting Wisely - Control You Passions

"But one of the very painful lessons I had to learn was outrage can actually be the thing that unhorses you. You can’t just run straight at the enemy screaming, waving your sword. The enemy is wily and he can trip you up on that.

The Christians in the Eastern Bloc who fought Communism had to be wise and not allow themselves to be taken by their passions because they could end up in prison or hurting other people within the underground church. That’s a hard skill for us to learn, but it’s going to be a necessary survival one, I believe."

- Ron dreher

What Does Suffering Signify?

"Suffering is no sign of being in the wrong place."

-Ruth Burrows-

Carmelite Nun

The Who God Isn't Immune To Pain

"I could never myself believe in God, if it were not for the cross. . . . In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it?" 

-  John Stott

Truth Is A Meddlesome Bitch

"Harvard’s motto is “VERITAS.” Many of you have already found out, and others will find out in the course of their lives, that truth eludes us if we do not concentrate our attention totally on it’s pursuit. But even while it eludes us, the illusion of knowing it still lingers and leads to many misunderstandings. Also, truth seldom is pleasant; it is almost invariably bitter."

- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Harvard Address. June, 1978

How A Church Stays Relevant

"A lot of people look at what will change in the future,” he said. “I look at what’s not going to change. People will still have marriage problems, they’re still going to be lonely, they’re still going to want to know the purpose of life, they still have problems with depression, fear, bitterness, jealousy. They’re human problems. If you’re dealing with personal lives of people you’re always relevant.”

- Rick Warren 

The God Hack

"It doesn’t even work as literature. The deus ex machina—the emergence of a divine force that magically rescues the hero from his predicament—is the cheapest trick in the hack writer’s playbook. It makes a mockery of independence, and courage, and destiny, and free will, and responsibility."
- Jordan Peterson 

War Brings Out Evil Justice

"Benjamin B. Ferencz, one of the prosecutors in the Nuremberg trials who, in May 1945, investigated occurrences at the Ebensee concentration camp, and narrated them to Tom Hofmann, a family member and biographer. He was completely outraged at what the Nazis had done there. When people discovered a SS guard who attempted to flee, they tied him to one of the metal trays used to transport bodies into the crematorium. They then proceeded to light the oven, and slowly roast the SS guard to death, taking him in and out of the oven several times. Ferencz said to Hofmann that at the time, he was in no position to stop the proceedings of the mob, and frankly admitted that he had not been inclined to try. Hofmann adds, "There seemed to be no limit to human brutality in wartime."

- Wikipedia.  Death By Burning.

Come Out Of Hiding!

“The psalms are God’s invitation to us to come out of hiding.” 

 - Darrell Winger

Suffering Pointlessly

"Because, you can't suffer pointlessly without becoming bitter, and you can't become bitter without becoming cruel. So you need an aim..... So, then, the question is, "what should your aim be?""

- Jordan Peterson. Conversation with Lewis Howes about Truth As The Antidote To Suffering. 

Bored With Torture!

" It's really pretty monotonous to keep doing the same thing all the time. Those trembling hands, those imploring eyes, that cowardly submissiveness-they are really a bore. If you could just get one of them to resist! "I love strong opponents! It's such fun to break their backs! said the Leningrad interrogator Shitov to G.G _____v.""
-Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The Gulag Archipelago. 

Ministry Is This

"Ministry means the ongoing attempt to put one's own search for God, with all the moments of pain and joy, despair and hope, at the disposal of those who want to join this search but do not know how. "

― Henri J.M. Nouwen

God is Cruel Like Me? Oh Boy!

I once saw God, as through a window l peered;
He was just as I suspected,
just as I feared.
So selfish and cruel He appeared to be;
So very ugly,
so unlike me.
Then I looked deeper, still deeper with time;
T‘was a minor all along,

and the image was mine," 

- Ty Gibson

You thought I was just like you. —Yahweh (PS 50:21)

17 You hate my instruction and cast my words behind you. 18 When you see a thief, you join with him; you throw in your lot with adulterers. 19 You use your mouth for evil and harness your tongue to deceit. 20 You sit and testify against your brother and slander your own mother’s son. 21 When you did these things and I kept silent, you thought I was exactly like you. Psalms 50:17-21 (NIV)

When Something Old Falls Appart

"The word change normally refers to new beginnings. But transformation more often happens not when something new begins but when something old falls apart. The pain of something old falling apart—disruption and chaos—invites the soul to listen at a deeper level. It invites and sometimes forces the soul to go to a new place because the old place is not working anymore.
The mystics use many words to describe this chaos: fire, darkness, death, emptiness, abandonment, trial, the Evil One. Whatever it is, it does not feel good and it does not feel like God. We will do anything to keep the old thing from falling apart."

~ Richard Rohr  Daily Meditation, Dec 29, 2017

Life Has Pain

"The human experience involves pain. That’s the way that is. If you cut your hand open while slicing an onion, there will be pain. No amount of transformation or enlightenment is ever going to change this. If you lose a loved one, there will be emotional or psychological pain. No amount of transformation or enlightenment is ever going to change this. If a close friend or spouse betrays you, it will hurt. No amount of transformation or enlightenment is ever going to change this."

(Jim Palmer. Notes From Over The Edge)

Get Out Of Bed Tomorrow

"Jesus didn’t psychologize or spiritualize people’s pain. He didn’t even try to explain it in light of God. Jesus faced pain and tasted the depths of it. He leaned into it, endured it, and fully met others in their hurt and heartache. Jesus cared. He did give a damn. Jesus felt it all deeply.

Being human means we go through life embracing it all fully and feeling it all deeply. That we don’t hide and try to protect ourselves. That we live. That we show up. That we laugh. That we cry. That we hurt. That we heal. That we care. That we love. And then, that we wake up the next morning and sign up to be human all over again. That is being IN the world."

(Jim Palmer. Notes From Over The Edge)

How Hurt Yourself and Others

“The cross Jesus asked you to carry is yourself. It’s all the pain inflicted on you in your past and all the pain you’ve inflicted on others.”

~ Thomas Keating 

Pain or Christians Who Convince Us God Us Not That Good

publication of “A Grief Observed,” which Lewis wrote after his wife’s death. God’s megaphone didn’t just rouse Lewis, it nearly shattered him. In writing about his bereavement, Lewis described what it was like to go to God “when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence.” He added: “Not that I am (I think) in much danger of ceasing to believe in God. The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about Him. The conclusion I dread is not ‘So there’s no God after all,’ but ‘So this is what God’s really like. Deceive yourself no longer.’ ”

There is also, for me at least, consolation in the conviction that we are part of an unfolding drama with a purpose. At any particular moment in time I may not have a clue as to what that precise purpose is, but I believe, as a matter of faith, that the story has an author, that difficult chapters need not be defining chapters and that even the broken areas of our lives can be redeemed."

(After Great Pain, Where Is God? Peter Wehner)

Transfer Your Pain

“If we don’t learn to transform the pain, we’ll transfer it.”

(Richard Rohr)

Treating Pain With Clichés

"I worry about people who know why bad things happen or think they can treat hurt with words and pain with clichés."

(Leonard Sweet. The Well Played Life)