Ed Bacsi

Many of my friends and family are Christians. Among them are several really faithful believers, folks who I can pinpoint as excellent examples for me to follow. One of them, Ed Courtney, passed away on Tuesday. I met Ed and his wife Syble during my second summer in Hungary, where they were the pastors of an international church. As I write this post, I am watching a Celebration Service in Ed's honor via a live internet stream. I'd like to share, mostly as a reminder to myself, some of Ed's attributes that reflect our Lord.

His sense of humor could light up a room. Most of the photos I have of Ed show a twinkle in his eye and laughter on his lips.

His wife, Syble, was truly the love of his life. They were always together, ministering alongside one another, and welcoming people into their home with profound hospitality. A person could tell by looking at Ed and Syble that they were waaaay in love with each other, and their love grew day by day.

He had a gentle spirit that made everyone around him feel so comfortable. In fact, everyone in Hungary called him Ed Bacsi, a term of affection similar to "Uncle."

Ed took a personal interest in everyone he met- old or young; Hungarian, American, Nigerian, or Cuban; church members or visitors; Baptist or Pentecostal; believer or nonbeliever. I believe this is what made him an great pastor.

He didn't work to spiritualize everything, nor did he hand wisdom out like gospel tracks. Yet everything about Ed was spiritual, and each time I spent a few minutes with him I came away wiser.

After living in Hungary for about seven years, Ed and Syble moved back to Jackson, Mississippi. I know from reading obituaries and comments from his friends that he served wholeheartedly as associate pastor at a church there. I also know from his friends' comments that Ed was exactly the same in Mississippi as he was in Hungary. His identity went beyond location or situation.

Ed's greatest desire was not anything magnificent or impossible; it was simply that all his family and friends would know Jesus Christ.

I thank the Lord that I knew Ed, and I ask Him to ease Syble's grief and the grief of her family and friends. I hope that in the years to come, God will transform my character to reflect His, like He did for my friend Ed.

Cowden's Confessions: Crafty Crafts

Heather and I visited a couple of craft stores today. We didn't intend to buy anything, just scope out some candles for the church. We left Hobby Lobby okay because we went in knowing that we were just looking. But then we went to Michael's.

Turns out craft stores know how to get money from people like us.

See, there was this wonderful mixture of Fall and Christmas decor all over the place. It even smelled like Fall-Christmas in there. After the initial Fall-mas feeling wore off, Heather discovered the first round of dollar items. They were small games and crafts for kids. She provides childcare for a family at our church now; she watches their three elementary-aged girls after school. They are pretty rowdy when they come home, so the craft store's cheap entertainment section caught her eye. We walked away from there with four items.

Right across the isle from that were the photo frames. We have most of our pictures on our computers, but we've discussed getting a collage frame to display our close friends and family. Guess what? These frames were 50% off! Who can resist, right? So we got one of those. Looks nice.

As any good store supervisor knows, you should arrange all the cheap clearance merchandise in an unavoidable area at the front of the store. It was there that we encountered 50% off Fall decor. At this point, I asked Heather to go get us a shopping cart. This should have been a warning sign. Heather got excited at the idea of making an autumnal centerpiece for our kitchen table (complete with plastic food and leaves). I found a clearance shelf of baskets a few feet away. Now we have our centerpiece.

Just in case a customer could avoid the clearance Fall stuff, some employee had put a bunch of $1 Christmas nicknacks right by the registers. I bought some Christmas notecards to give to folks at church.

Then we began to feel guilty for our impulsiveness, so we wandered slowly backward through the store. Did you know that these scheming merchandisers even put cheap stuff on the opposite sides of the shelves??? We bought a wonderful-smelling fall candle for $4.

After placing the candle in our shopping cart, Wife and I turned to each other and said simultaneously, "Let's get out of here!" So we ran the cart up to the register bobsled style, and as the cashier rang up our purchases, we mumbled things like, "Sales... clearance... good deal... we're suckers..."

Does anyone else have these experiences at craft stores?

Move over, Michelangelo

In our Wednesday night children's worship time, we are discussing the names of God. The kids have been drawing pictures showing the names of God, and the symbolism that goes with them. One of my favorite drawings was done by a boy named Daniel:

I asked Daniel to explain his drawing to me. He told me that one arm was God's, the other was man's, and their hands are touching. I asked what the shiny gold part was, and Daniel couldn't explain that part as easily. He said it is what happens when the two hands touch.

As soon as I saw Daniel's picture, it reminded me of another famous piece of art. This one, of course, painted a few hundred years ago on the ceiling of a church:

Perhaps the most fascinating part of this painting is that Adam (on the left) is so lackadaisical about reaching toward his Creator, while the entire body of God is stretched as far as it can go. Well done, Mr. Michelangelo.

Maybe I'm influenced by the five-month sermon series of Revelation that our church is finishing up, but I like to think of this painting and Daniel's drawing as a before-and-after sort of thing. Imagine the shiny golden glory that will occur when God finally obliterates that space between his hand and ours. Our pastor told us this morning that many scholars find it difficult to distinguish when John, in Revelation 21, is writing about believers and when he is writing about the New Jerusalem itself. It seems that, when God creates the new world, He, the saints, and the City will all be united perfectly.

That's a lot of shiny-golden-goodness. Looking forward to it.

I'm a big kid

Isn’t it fascinating to watch children play? Yesterday Wife and I got to spend some time with a child from our church and her mother. After eating supper together, we all played a few rounds of Candyland, with the little girl winning most of the games. Her rejoicing quickly turned into a silly hop, roll, and run around the room time. The rest of us just watched and laughed. She loved having our full attention, pausing occasionally to determine whether we approved of her actions and to ask if we would join in. We explained that we were all too big to do somersaults in the living room, but she should go ahead.

As I plan weekly worship services, I often find myself asking God if he approves and whether he will join in. Sometimes I stop and realize that to him, I am much like a child dancing around the living room, seeking his approval of my trivial motions. Maybe if I find the right combination of hymns, choruses, testimony, and prayer he will clap his hands and tell me I’ve done a great job. I even try different combinations of things in my personal spiritual life trying to find the perfect balance.

John Piper, author and pastor at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis Minnesota, has said that God is most glorified when we are satisfied in Him. For reasons beyond our understanding, God loves to delight in us, his children. It’s easy to see the joy on a parent’s face when their child works to make them laugh. Imagine God’s joy when he sees us singing, speaking, and living for his satisfaction.

“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” –Colossians 3:16-18

Musical Diversity...

It's the spice of life!

This morning, after I tossed my junk into the car and before I headed off to church for the day, I popped a CD in the stereo for my enjoyment. The disc I chose was a recording of Mussorgsky's Pictures At An Exhibition (orchestrated by Ravel, of course). As it disappeared into the dashboard, I heard a few familiar notes from the radio. I switched back to FM to listen to the Aqua's amazing hit from '97... Barbie Girl.

That's right, folks. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to Barbie Girl. I even sang a few parts myself (come on Barbie, let's go party). And I immediately followed it with Mussorgsky.

Later today, I looked up hymns for church services. I perused church choir music. I listened to the Glenn Miller orchestra's Christmas album. I also played a movement of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 14 in C# Minor, opus 27, no. 2 (aka The Moonlight Sonata).

It's a wonderful musical life I lead.

A quick thought

It's late on Saturday night, and because I'm a music minister now, I need to get up early for church. So I'll keep this one brief...

Wife is away for a week, spending time with her family. I am happy for her, but I miss her a lot. At the risk of sounding cheesy (or maybe rude), I really didn't expect to miss her this much. I expected to be able to preclude my loneliness by having some quality alone time, and while I am having some good time to myself, I am still lonely. In the last few days I've read several chapters of Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller, Crazy Love by Francis Chan, and listened to a couple of podcasts. Here is something that has struck me hard today...

I think that the metaphor of the church as the bride of Christ is one of the most beautiful metaphors God has created. I believe He gave us the gift of marriage to allow us to experience His love from a couple of perspectives. Through marriage we more fully understand romance, commitment, and intimacy from the perspectives of both the Lover and the Beloved. Through marriage we have a unique opportunity to grow deeper in our relationship with God, to fall more in love with Him.

Marriage isn't perfect, though. We are a rebellious creation, prone to disobey the Creator who loves us, and so our relationships with one another are flawed. As we become more Christ-like individuals, our relationships become more pure, but we can never quite reach the relational perfection we were originally intended to experience. So I think another experience marriage gives us is that, as we learn to love our spouses as Christ loves us, we become more like Him, all the while loving Him more in contrast to our imperfect selves.

Yes, I am 8 years old

I feel like a kid again. Wife and I brought several items back to Waco from KC this week. They include: her wedding dress, my bicycle, some delicious granola my mom made, and my LEGOS! YES! We have spent the last few evenings building Lego sets. And I have spent the last few mornings, between breakfast and going to work, building even more. Love it love it. I love the creative aspect of Legos, the constructive aspect, and the sound they make when I rake my hand through them. Ah, to be young again.

In other news, Wife and I went on a date tonight! That's right, keeping the romance alive. I won't tell you how long it had been since we had been on a date because I cannot remember. This time we went to Uncle Dan's BBQ. It was alright, I give it a B minus. Having grown up in Kansas City (the barbeque capital of the world, people!), I consider myself somewhat of a barbeque connoisseur. Connoisseur is really another word for snob. Anyway, Uncle Dan's had decent food, though the brisket was a bit dry. My complaints were the lack of barbeque-restaurant atmosphere and the small portions. An excellent BBQ eatery piles on the meat. Uncle Dan's workers (nephews?) did not.

We continued our date at the movie theatre, where we saw Iron Man 2. It was, in a word, awesometasticlysweet. It had all the makings of a good movie... a thousand fight scenes, cool technology that doesn't exist, a lack of mushy mush, and Scarlett Johansson (just kidding, wifey!). Heather would have enjoyed it more if she hadn't had a headache, but she liked the movie pretty well. We'll probably buy it someday.