CoffeePods
A series exploring Christian healing in a handy coffee-break sized podcast. Plug yourself in, pick up your mug of coffee, and let's go.
CoffeePods
Holy Coincidences: Not Just Birthday Cake
it's time for another episode of coffee pods with acorn christian healing foundation and your host lisa way and the reverend chris kramer. Grab a brew and make yourself comfortable as we explore what's happening in the world from the perspective of Christian healing.
Speaker 2:Okay, so welcome back to another episode of Coffee Pods with Chris in Switzerland.
Speaker 1:It's overcast here it's cloudy, but it's finally changed. We're no longer in this heat, so now the weather is perfect. But I can't go get in the the lake over here because the water is very, very cold. But my wife, before she went back to the uk, managed to have a big swim and in uh, in the lake yeah, so it's a brzersee Lake, brinks and she said it was refreshing, but it was cold.
Speaker 2:I bet it was cold.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it's still good and sorry about the noise. I'm actually at my favorite spot down here by the lake where I have internet, by the bus stop and actually being disconnected from the internet has been really healthy. I get to watch a little bit of news and I'm watching all sorts of fantastic old movies. I watched Steel Magnolias the other night, classic and I watched oh my goodness, I was watching Rocky last night. I was thinking it was a fight story about boxing and it's a love story about ordinary people. And of course I knew a little bit of the backstory with Sylvester Stallone's faith journey and how his writing Rocky is very much a story of his relationship with Christ, and so I kind of watched it last night with a new hat on, thinking about all the Christological pieces in the story. So it was great.
Speaker 2:Interesting. Oh, that's great.
Speaker 1:We have a guest on here today. We do. I'm into this trend, but today's a special guest because it's the woman who gave you birth. Because it's the woman who gave you birth and it was Lisa's birthday.
Speaker 2:Just was it yesterday it was Saturday, the 5th of July.
Speaker 1:Unbelievable. So what a perfect day to have your mother. I know Hello, Lynn.
Speaker 3:Hello, hi, hi.
Speaker 2:Well, this is a surprise, and where are you joining us from?
Speaker 1:I want to ask your mother, lisa. I want to ask her what her favorite memory of you is from your first year of life. Oh, my word, something that Lisa did before she hit the age of one stuck in your mind all these years later okay, let me just have a little think um she did start.
Speaker 3:She didn't start walking till quite late, but she did start talking before she was one. She hasn't stopped since so I think, yeah, I was quite surprised that uh, you know, before she was one, she was beginning to to to make uh sounds.
Speaker 1:That sounded like real words yeah, what was her first word? Do you remember what? What her first word was?
Speaker 2:no, no oh, that was my.
Speaker 1:No was the word. You learned how to create boundaries early. I stuck with him though, Chris. My first word was chocolate or something.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow.
Speaker 1:What did you do to celebrate her birthday, Lynn?
Speaker 3:We had a family barbecue, which was lovely. We are just big on family get togethers. Any excuse, any reason and we will get together. Yeah, we just. It's just wonderful.
Speaker 1:And you've got a chef in the family, right? So you've got a built-in cook.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, and he'd been working that day actually on on, uh, on saturday lunchtime, and so when he came, when he came here, we just let him sit down and enjoy the barbecue. And, as you know, lisa said the sun came out because it was oh, the weather was shocking.
Speaker 1:So what's the name of his business? I'm trying to remember. I've seen pictures of his food.
Speaker 3:Thank you, it's.
Speaker 1:It's cutting edge foods limited and does he go around in like cater parties and things like that? There's parties.
Speaker 3:The last five weeks he's been working on a tv show preparing food for them.
Speaker 1:Nice weddings, private parties, all right I can't get married again, so I don't have that excuse. I need to come up with an excuse to book him because I I think a church, church garden party or something, and have a barbecue but how long have you been married, chris? 30 years, 31? Is it 31 or 30? I need to know this. I think it's 30. We just did 30. So we're coming up on 31 in October. Okay.
Speaker 3:So maybe 35,. He'll come and cater for you I don't know, I can't wait till 35.
Speaker 1:I think we'll just have to do it next year or something. Okay, yeah, but I'm so glad that he. I've seen pictures of his food and, oh my goodness, it looks like he really has a gift with cooking. So I imagine he stays booked and busy. So that was good he does.
Speaker 3:He does and he's always wanted to be a chef. At the age of 10, he's wanted to be a chef.
Speaker 1:Wow, so he almost does. He see it as a calling of sorts.
Speaker 3:I think so because he is very gifted. He's very gifted and Lisa will tell you when he's working. So you see TV shows and you see chefs and they're pulling their hair out and they're shouting at people and sort of losing their rag a bit, but he's just so calm. I don't know how he does it. You know he's spinning, literally spinning so many plates. Yeah, he's really calm.
Speaker 1:How many children do you have, lynn, just the two three.
Speaker 3:so I've got chris, the chef, nick, who sells coffee machines and coffee for Indigo Valley Coffee, which is a Christian organization, and then Lisa.
Speaker 1:And then your amazing Lisa, who also doesn't pull her hair out in the chaos and keeps us all organized at Acorn. I think maybe there's something about you that's in the mix here that has made these three wonderful people.
Speaker 3:I think their dad is much calmer than me.
Speaker 2:He has a lot.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he's really gifted with patience, definitely.
Speaker 1:Tell me about where your faith journey has impacted your family life, because I know faith is a strong part of your story and everything that you're about and you love the Lord and do a lot of leadership in the hub in Guildford so how has it impacted my family?
Speaker 3:um, so my um husband is not yet a follower of Jesus. However, for somebody who doesn't follow him, you'd be hard pushed to think he doesn't. He has a great servant heart. If he were a Christian, you'd say that was his gift, that was his gifting. He has a great servant heart and maybe that's my faith has impacted that. Yeah, I think so, yeah, definitely, and I think also my faith, because I mentioned earlier on about how we'll celebrate anything as a family. Um, that is a big, a big deal for me, and I know it is for my husband as well, and for and for Lisa and and our sons. Family is a big thing and I think, um, my faith has really, um, helped there a big deal, a big deal.
Speaker 1:yeah and I think it's so interesting how we have barriers between ourself and our faith and it's kind of like I used to think with my dad, who was not a real believer. He was baptized as a Catholic when he was a little baby and then sort of grew up nominally involved in church life, and it really wasn't until I got ordained that my dad even showed up for church and if I really wanted to anger him if I preached a sermon and didn't send him the notes, he would get furious because he wanted to see what my latest sermon was. And so I saw this hunger to know more about God, but it was wrapped in a package of doubt and suspicion and speculation and so sorry, the bus has just passed me, but I found that I needed to make peace with where he was in his journey with God and it was a real wonderful thing when I actually realized that his mustard seed of faith was was just as wonderful as my kind of gushing life of following Jesus and that God loved him just as much as he loved me. And that was an amazing revelation that I kind of stopped trying to twist his arm to believe in all the theological things that I believed in and I think, toward the end of his life.
Speaker 1:We had this really wonderful piece about our relationship because both of us became sort of curious about what made the other tick and uh, and I think curiosity is a whole lot healthier posture than uh, than manipulation and um. But surely that you know the two of you together make one heck of a team because you've got such great kids who are respectful and decent and gifted and sharing their gifts with the world, and and your husband, I know, is kind of the secret sauce behind some of my favorite roller coasters. So I, I, I said when they were interviewing me with acorn, I said when I found out Lisa's dad was connected to all these roller coasters, I said I'm in, we have a connection to all my crazy dreams, do you?
Speaker 2:know as well something that I was just thinking about how faith has impacted family. But I was just thinking about dad in general. While we're talking about him and where he worked at the amusement parks. You get so many different people who go into the parks Like you get what he would probably have considered as like the troublemakers, because they come in and try and rob the stores. They would be trying to get on the rides. You know they would try and get in for free, that's, you know, like jumping barriers and things, um, and then you'd have the wonderful families just coming in and having a really amazing time and I think dad treated everyone really equally, even like the staff. He he would treat, um, everyone who came through the gates with like the same respect, even if it meant you have to leave um he was.
Speaker 2:He's got a huge amount of respect when it comes to dealing with people and communicating with people, um, and I think that's something that's worn off on us as a family, you know, if you turned it around the other way as well, um, yeah, he's a good egg he's a good egg, yeah you know my, my dad, when I was a little boy he was really into um ufos.
Speaker 1:yeah, in the in the early 70s there was like this big thing of of ufos and and visitors from outer space and they started making movies and sci-fi stuff. And there was one person in particular who was quite famous and, lynn, you may remember the book Chariots of the Gods. It was real popular in America in the early 70s, written by a Swiss guy named Eric von Däniken, who actually lives just over there and von Däniken. When I was a little boy I remember I came downstairs in our house and Eric was sitting with my dad at the kitchen table and they were talking about UFOs and aliens and space creatures that visited the earth and all this. And I'm just a little kid and Eric had been booked to come and give a lecture in my dad's visiting artists and lecture series and he came a few times and he would promote his books and all these theories he had about alien visitors who came to the earth and all this stuff.
Speaker 1:But the thing that got me was later in Von Däniken's life he talked about how he never lost his religious faith. He talked about how he never lost his religious faith and that his whole idea of all the major religions of the world that have a space visitor who comes like a jesus christ figure. He claimed that these were sort of unknown aliens that came and he looked beyond the um, the story of alien visitors to find a divine, supreme being that was omniscient and omnipresent. That's kind of interesting. He hasn't jettisoned religion. He continued to have all these crazy ideas and doubt and stuff and until about a month ago he was lecturing at the Jungfrau Park in Interloch and he would have a daily von Däniken and talk about the, the gods and the planets and all this kind of stuff and, and I think, his health he's just turned 92, I believe, and so he's no longer doing the daily lecture down the street here.
Speaker 1:But, um, the the funny thing is, I think we live in a time of such, um, you know, such complexity with humanity, where we know the differences of people around the world, and so it's sort of undeniable to face the fact that the world is filled with so many different people with so many different ideas, and then we who have sort of found truth in Jesus Christ have sort of found truth in Jesus Christ. It becomes very hard not to want to share that with people, because you think it's so sad to think that somebody doesn't really know the story of Jesus or doesn't believe the story of Jesus or kind of doubts the veracity of the story. And then those of us who kind of had personal encounters with God, who have walked the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem and we've kind of stood on the places and read the scriptures and we have kind of come to the conclusion that this is my truth, that we really just want to share that. It's kind of like my guess is your brother makes a pretty mean chicken dish.
Speaker 1:you know, you think once you've eaten it, once you've tasted it, you're like I want you to try this. This stuff is good. You know it's my grandmother's brownie. You know you're I'm not going to keep this to myself, because I've come to believe this is absolutely the best brownie in the world and it's my obligation to share it with everybody, because you don't want to live life without the experience of her brownie in the world. And it's my obligation to share it with everybody, because you don't want to live life without the experience of her brownie. And so there are still people who are reluctant to take a bite. And maybe that's the you know, maybe that's the whole point of evangelism is that we're, we're going around as ambassadors of the truth of Jesus in a world that's hungry and afraid to bite.
Speaker 1:And can I share a story that happened yesterday with me? I take two services on a Sunday here, and the first one was an interlock and at the big church downtown. The big church downtown. And this chap walks in to the church and he reaches out to shake my hand and he introduces himself as from being from Atlanta, Georgia, and he looked me in the eyes and he said I'm Lee Marchman. And it was one of these moments where, you know I can't hardly describe it because I didn't recognize him but this was the former captain of my college football team. He was a three-time All-American. He was All-Conference, All-District. I mean, he had more awards than anybody. He was our team captain and we won the South Atlantic Conference that year. He was just Mr Everything on the football team and I was the scout team tight end.
Speaker 1:But he had come he lives in Belgium now but he was visiting a child in Italy and decided to come to Interlochen, the church, and it was just like we picked up where we left off 39 years, 39, 40 years ago, when we played together and these two old fellas just rekindling this flame. And then we began talking and we remembered people and stories and all these things that were so impactful and we remembered, you know, fellowship of Christian athletes and our head coach, who we both called Daddy Rabbit. We sort of looked at each other and we said Coach Patton yeah, Daddy Rabbit, because that's what we used to call him and we sat there for two hours in front of the church, reminiscing, talking about our children, talking about our wives, just really sharing love, and it was almost like we were sitting in 1985 on the campus and remembering, and there was an element of the spiritual in it. I can't quite figure out how to explain that, but it was a God thing, it was a real Holy spirit thing.
Speaker 1:And and when we hugged each other, you know it was two old guys, but when we looked in each other's eyes, you know I saw number 48, our middle linebacker, you know, and and it was just a joyful. We didn't want to stop. It was really strange. We've been talking for over two hours and his poor wife was tolerating us and and I said we could just stay here all afternoon. I just know it and, uh, you think you were there, chris what's that?
Speaker 2:did he know that you were there or was it a complete like surprise?
Speaker 1:He said he saw on Facebook that I was going to be in Switzerland and that, because he was coming up from Italy back to Belgium where he lives, he decided to come and stay the night in Interlochen to surprise me. And so it was a real, it was a real wonderful thing. We had a another couple in the congregation yesterday who had just gotten married two days ago and they were on their honeymoon, and so it was such a wonderful thing to have all this joy around. And then I found my. I mean, I really I jettisoned the sermon yesterday because when I saw Lee, immediately I'm just like this, and the scripture for yesterday was you know, do not plow a field looking over your shoulder, was the text from the gospel in Luke.
Speaker 1:And I'm sitting here thinking it's so hard not to look back, you know, because reminiscing and looking back is not being focused on the past.
Speaker 1:But you know, and I said to Leah, I said you know, basically we're all following Jesus. And isn't it wonderful when, when we come upon our, our old story in our, in front of us, it's like when you keep walking forward and you come to Switzerland to serve God in the church and you bump into your past in a good, in a glorious way, where you can celebrate it and uh, and then you keep moving forward and and uh, your past goes with you and it shapes your future. Um, and I think maybe that's we started off talking about your birthday. I mean, the thing about birthdays is celebrating the growth and celebrating the future. It's not dwelling on any bad thing that marked your past, but it's about really celebrating the person that you're becoming in God. And I kind of rejoice because I get this blessing of hanging out with you on a regular basis and my faith grows because, uh, because I get to spend time with a person who is so grounded.
Speaker 3:I think it's great. Sorry, liz, carry on. No, no go. I was just gonna say I think it's good and great to to reminisce, isn't it? Because, especially when it's to do with our faith. So, chris, you were talking about how you met up with your um, your old school pal um, and you can see where your faith maybe was just beginning. I don't know when it began, but you can see where you were, where you are now, and and everywhere in between, and and the same with Lisa. You know we were celebrating her birthday and you can't help but talk about, oh, do do you remember when? Do you remember when? And you can see the journeys that we have taken and Jesus has been in all of those journeys.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Obviously, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But I had one other story to share. Okay, I did the service at Grindelwald last night.
Speaker 2:Oh yes.
Speaker 1:It was kind of cloudy sort of like it is today.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:More trucks going by. I apologize, okay, but today you can just see the clouds starting to lift off the mountains. But when I was in Grindelwald last night, the clouds were kind of sitting in and you couldn't really see much. And I went up to the church thinking, you know, I wonder if there's even anybody that will show up.
Speaker 1:Because sometimes resort ministry is funny, because people come and people go, and Sundays sometimes are change days and, and I was set up for the service, and this one young man walks in and he's from Spain and he speaks English and he wanted to come to church. He had come in the morning and was at missed the service. So he came back and it was just the two of us and and so you know, he was acting like he didn't need for me to do the service, since it was just the two of us. Yeah and I I thought, no, no, we'll have evening prayer, we're, we're here.
Speaker 1:So we went and sat on either side of the front of the church facing this wonderful altar, and we started walking our way through the the evening prayer service and, uh, and I decided, well, he's from Spain and the only songs that I know that that are Spanish are from Tese, okay, and so so you know, I immediately I just thought, well, nada te tuerbe, nada te espante. So I sang this and he started singing with me. So I sang this and he started singing with me. And then, as we were singing I mean it's amazing as we were singing, this very large group came in the back of the church and they all began singing as well in Spanish, and they all sat down behind us and we said a few more prayers and we, we prayed for the church in Nigeria and we went through the liturgy and we'll sing another one.
Speaker 1:So then we sang De noche, remos de noche que para encontrar la fuente, and they all sang. They sang all the words, they knew all the words. And so when the service ended, we stood in a big circle and we said the final dismissal, the blessing and the you know, gloria, and then, before everybody left, the large group that came in were all from Guadalajara, in Mexico, so all Spanish speaking, and he was from Spain. And then he looked over at me and he said that last year he had been really struggling with his faith in God and that he, as he described it to me, that he had given up his faith, he didn't want to believe in God anymore and he decided to go to Taizé in France, to the monastery which is also the monastery I was living in when I left to come to Switzerland all those years ago. So he looked at me and he pointed at his chest and he was wearing a Taizé enameled cross from the gift shop in Teze. And he said when he was in Teze that he rediscovered the reality of Jesus in his life. And I just thought of all the things that I could have done and sung, and you know, we end up singing Spanish songs from Teze and we end up being joined by, essentially, a choir from Guadalajara, mexico.
Speaker 1:I said you can't make this up, it's just wonderful. And by the time it was over we exchanged phone numbers. He and his girlfriend are going to come to England to visit I've got to go up to Kleine Scheidegg to see his two brothers who are dishwashers at the hotel up there, and so we've already kind of. But it's how wonderful God is when you just give him a chance. It's that opportunity for God to do something grand in your life with something so ordinary. And again it's when you show up.
Speaker 1:It's just so many people think that there's some great mystery and methodology to following Jesus. But really the true mystery is what happens when you just say yes instead of no. You know it's. It's when you say yes to god and you show up. Then things start happening and they pop, and maybe you notice it and maybe you don't. I think so many times things are happening, we don't see them, but then occasionally you just sort of you sort of see a spark and you say, oh, that's, that's a god thing definitely amazing I also think just what you're saying there.
Speaker 2:We so I was with the gilford healing hub last week, um, and there was a little sort of team meeting and prayer time before, and we were reflecting on how healing is often a journey, and we were just talking about how we can journey with people and what that might look like, and also helping people who don't yet well, wouldn't yet maybe say that they're Christians, help them understand what we're talking about when we say healing is a journey.
Speaker 2:Healing is a journey, and some of the things you've just mentioned, chris, like these surprise moments that God has perhaps ordained or he's just been within the moments, those two are parts of people's healing journey. I mean that thing of that guy who was there and he's had all these encounters on his travels and by visiting different people, and that will be part of his healing journey for his faith. And I think you know we, because we, we do our organized times of ministry, whether it's acorn or whether it's church or whatever it might be. But what, I wonder, what is happening in these surprise moments, um, that are also a part of someone's journey, isn Isn't it incredible?
Speaker 1:It's wonderful and, to put it in a different way, it's about new birth. We talked about your birthday, but this is about new birth in the spirit, being born again, in the spirit of God. And new birth, new life, new opportunity, new joy. I mean it's the most exciting thing that we can talk about in life, especially in in a world where there's strife and there's pain and suffering and there's wars and and difficulty, and the prince of peace calls us all to rebirth yeah and so maybe, maybe, every day should be a birthday where we celebrate new life and new possibilities and eat your brother's good food every day.
Speaker 2:I do like that Every day. I just I just wanted to share a book title. You were talking about sharing your sermon notes with your dad and it reminded me. There's a book and it's by Greg Well, gregory Boyd. Greg Boyd letters from a skeptic and it's where he's writing back and forth to his dad, who is not a believer. And they just grappled through these letters back and forth Big things like suffering and death and some of the the sermon points that greg would have brought out, so he was the name of that again it's called uh, let's just get it right.
Speaker 2:Letters from a skeptic I have heard about it, but I have never read it, so I need to put that on my list it's so good because he basically says dad, I preached on whatever topic this sunday and then his dad comes back to him and says you know, I don't know how you can say that God is good when there's children dying, and then they go into these back and forth letters and it's just a fantastic book. I just thought I'd mention it because there's so many big questions around healing. Isn't there as well? That we get you know?
Speaker 2:when those things happen.
Speaker 1:Well, this has been a good podcast. Today, this coffee pod has been filled with caffeine and thank you for joining us.
Speaker 2:I can't call you lynn thanks, mom.
Speaker 3:Oh well, thanks for having me. And what a surprise. Yes, what a surprise that's great.
Speaker 2:Oh, um, so we will catch you at the next episode, which comes out on Friday. Thanks, guys.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to Coffee Pots today don't forget to like, follow and subscribe this podcast is made possible thanks in part to the generosity of people like you.
