A Little Better // Death Is Staring at You

Transcript

Aaron Hixson:  Hey Northridge, welcome to A Little Better, where our goal is to know God better and to do better, so that we can be a little better. 

Hey everybody, welcome back to A Little Better, thank you for being part of our podcast community.  We're so grateful that you join in each week.  I know during the middle of COVID, if you're anything like me, I feel like my podcast listening time has been drastically reduced. Not having a commute means that my amount of listening has gone down.  I don't know, Drew, are you the same way?  What's that going like for you?

Drew Karschner:  Yeah, I mean, it's difficult to play a podcast right now, it just is.  No commute, it takes down my podcast time, for sure. 

Aaron:  Yeah.  So anyway, thanks for still listening in.  I don't know if you are now shifting when you listen to, you know, whatever, doing the dishes time, or shower time, what?  I don't know, is that weird?  [Laughing]

Drew:  Trying to get away from your kids time. 

Aaron:  Yo, whatever, actually that's the same thing, showering.  [Laughing.]  But, yeah, thanks for still tuning in.  And we've actually got some good options available.  If you're the kind of person who has found yourself where you don't any longer have time where you can listen to something and feel like you could drive and listen or whatever, we actually had a volunteer come forward who wanted to provide transcriptions for the podcast, which is pretty amazing.  So shout out to Sara [stuttering].  Wow, I can't talk.  Shoutout to Shara. 

Drew:  Not to be confused with Shara. 

Aaron:  Yeah Shara.  Easily confused.  Shout out to her.  And that's amazing that she's willing to do this.  We're gonna make them available as easily as we can.  Now, this is a volunteer who's willing to do this.  I'm not saying, she has not signed on to do this for the rest of eternity, and we're not expecting her to, so obviously we'll keep you posted about how that process goes, but we're running it as an experiment for now, and excited that we get to have these available. 

Drew:  Thank you Sara. 

Aaron:  Yes, thank you.  In terms of how we will make these available, at the moment they are on our episode webpage, so if you're savvy enough to know where the episode webpage is, depending on how you listen to podcasts, there's a million ways to get to it, so I'm not gonna describe all of the ways, but that's a button that you're looking for. 

Maybe click the details button or something like that, and you'll find an episode webpage.  It'll be available there in text format.  If you're having trouble finding it, no problem.  You know, you can email us, [email protected], or you can even just text me or Drew or anybody that works at our church and they'll get you to us, and we can make sure that we get that to you.  You can text me personally at (585)484-7636, yeah whatever, I'd be happy to make sure we get that to you. 

But that's just another way to make it A) accessible for our deaf and hard of hearing community, but then also at the same time, some people just prefer to read instead of listen, so.  That's fine.  Engage however you can engage.  Cool. 

All right, that was 2 minutes and 42 seconds of housekeeping.  Thank you guys for your patience. 

But Drew, hit me with some stories from quarantine.  Have you had any like, funny things that your kids have done or embarrassing work from home moments?  What's that been like? 

Drew:  I mean, you know, I got a lot of good stories.  My kids are always trying to interrupt my meetings.  I think the best one -- you have to understand my office.  One, we took the door off way before COVID-19 happened, which was a great move until now.  It's wide open, so you can hear everybody going on.  And it's right next to the stairs that come downstairs, and so one day I'm sitting in my office.  And I face the door to the stairs.

And I'm in, I wouldn't call it a super serious meeting, but I would say semi-serious, and so I'm sitting there and I'm talking back and forth with the people in the meeting.  And Ruby-Kate comes down the stairs, and she peeks her head out and she smiles, and she comes all the way down the stairs so she's almost looking in the door frame, and she's looking at me, she smiles.  She's got her pajama top on, and she turns her back to me.  I'm like, what is she doing?  But she doesn't move.  And then all of the sudden, she raises her hands in the air, which reveals her tiny, cute little butt cheeks, and she starts shaking and she goes, [singing] "shake your booty, shake your booty,” and she's just wiggling her little hiney back and forth.  And like, I just straight burst out in laughter in the middle of this serious meeting.  I'm like, "Guys, I'm sorry.  There is nothing I could do in this moment but laugh." 

Aaron:  You have been ambushed.  Oh, that is so funny.  How old is Ruby-Kate again? 

Drew:  She's two, yeah.  Two. 

Aaron:  Oh my goodness, so cute. 

Drew:  The better question is, what is Ashley teaching her while I'm in the office?

Aaron:  Oh my word, that's funny.  Throwing Ashley right under the bus. 

Drew:  What about you, Aaron, Grayson do anything crazy like that? 

Aaron:  He hasn't bombed many of my meetings.  Thankfully, being where I am, he's not really able to get there without some degree of help.  If he's gonna come up, Lauren's usually checking my calendar or whatever to see if I'm in a meeting, which is very nice of her.  So no booty shaking yet, but he did, in trying to explain to him, specifically with Gigi, who is Lauren's mom, Donna, they live in New Hampshire.  

He was talking to her about why he wanted her to come or something, he wanted to see her, so they were talking about why she couldn't come, and she said, you know, trying to explain -- how do you explain COVID to a three-year-old?  She just said, there's a bug that people are getting, and it's making them sick, and so I don't want to get that bug or whatever.  She was just explaining it on FaceTime or something, and then the next time -- I don't know, it was a couple weeks later.  She was on FaceTime with him again, and he said "Gigi, are the bugs still outside of your house?  Are they still making everyone sick?  Where are the bugs?  Have you gotten rid of the bugs yet?" 

And we were looking at him, like, what are you saying?  And she's like, "I tried to explain it, this is the best I could come up with."  And now he thinks there are, like, venomous bugs waiting outside of Gigi's house.  Which, I'll deal with that.  I'll take it. 

Drew:  If it was really a bug, we'd be good in New York cause the snow would have killed it a long time ago. 

Aaron:  Very true, very true.  We would be hoping for a snowstorm.  Oh wait, we had one last week.  Unbelievable. 

Drew:  It's only April 19th, I mean, like, no big deal, right? 

Aaron:  Yeah, everybody loves an Easter snowstorm. 

Drew:  Where I grew up, we got 8 inches.  8 inches. 

Aaron:  What?  This past week? 

Drew:  Yeah, 8 inches of snow.  Like, the power went out and everything.  Happy spring, everybody! 

Aaron:  I know.  For once we get to say we're so glad we live in Rochester, we didn't get as much snow. 

Drew:  Jesus is alive, spring isn't. 

[Both laughing.] 

Aaron:  Seriously.  It's still in that grave.  Come on out.  That's funny. 

But hey, one more -- I realized I have another housekeeping thing I wanted to mention before we jump into sermon discussion, and that is that we're recording this podcast these days Mondays around 3 o'clock.  That's kind of our current schedule.  We've done some pre-recording in the past, but because of COVID, we're doing it Mondays around 3.  So I would really encourage all of our listeners, if you've got questions or comments or anything that you wanna say related to this podcast, from Saturday night services or Sunday services or whatever, if you have anything, just send it over to us, because we would totally engage with it, and now you have the opportunity to do so right now.  We're in a phase where we absolutely could be bringing those things up.  

Like I said before, [email protected], if email's not your thing, text me or Drew or anybody on our staff, that will get a question to us.  Literally any way that you can contact us, social media, it doesn't matter.  Get it to us by Monday around 3, and we'll see if we can include questions or comments or whatever.  We would love to do that, and we're in a phase where we totally can even easier than other times.  Hit us up.  

Okay.  So, week 1, A Life That Matters.  And I have a couple questions for you.  And Connor's listening in, so he might have to tune in as well, we'll have to see here.  But that video, the title package, did we already talk about this?  The title package was Devin Graf walking on 490 right by the Rochester bridge, right?  It looks literally like he's in the middle of the road, I was thinking, ignore social distancing, say nothing about that, he's in the middle of the highway.  How did he get there? So then I'm hearing rumors that it was a green screen and I don't believe it, so someone prove it to me. 

Drew:  I believe Connor has confirmed it was a green screen.  Matt Snyder was behind Devin, and he was holding up a green screen, and boom, magic.  It just shows you how amazing our creative team is. 

Aaron:  Where were they?  In the middle of 490? 

Drew:  I think they were standing somewhere on the side of 490, and they green screened him into 490. 

Aaron:  So I'm guessing the reason they wanted to do it there was to match the lighting or something so that it would look the same?  Connor's nodding his head.  Okay.  I just, that is crazy to me, because I've seen bad green screening, and that did not look like bad green screening to me, and I wouldn't have assumed we have the ability to do good green screening.  No offense to Connor, I just assumed we don't have that kind of cool technology, but apparently you literally just need a green sheet. 

[Both laughing.]

Drew:  The green sheet they used to hang in our podcast studio. 

Aaron:  That's right, "studio."  I love when we call it a studio.  That makes me so happy, because it sounds so legit, and it's a basement.  But, okay.  Now that that's cleared up, it was officially green screen, which was very surprising to me. 

Week 1, A Life That Matters.  You talked all about how we need to begin with the end in mind, and I kinda want to enter into your experience.  I know that this series came as a result of your dad's death.  Talk to me a little bit about, we planned super far in advance.  This was not the sermon series that was gonna be just post-Easter.  I mean, I don't know.  A month and a half ago?  When did we make that change?  That's a very, quote, "last minute change" for us, and I'd love to just bring everybody in to kind of the genesis of this series. 

Drew:  Yeah, I think when my dad died, obviously the point I said, death brings perspective, or crisis, so, I feel like I walked through both of those things, a crisis with COVID, and my dad's death.  It has really caused me to reflect on my life and what's important and what's valuable. 

I often teach out of the overflow of what God's doing in my heart. I just think those messages are more real. That's not always the case.  I think there's series we do that we just talk about.  It's not necessarily something that's churning in my heart, but this was just a series that God places on my heart.  I've just gotta do this.  If I don't, I feel like I'm gonna be disobeying God, cause I feel like he planned it in my heart. 

So yeah.  I just, through the season of life I'm in right now, God's been teaching me a lot of things, and I thought it would be valuable to walk our church through it.  Weirdly enough, we're probably all thinking a little bit of those things right now, with the crisis that we're all dealing with.  And it's really cool, again, how, even if you go back to Unfiltered Jesus and this series, and how God kinda laid it out for our church, I just feel really blessed with how he has planned our series for us.  So we could be really relevant and engaging and impactful in this season. 

Aaron:  I agree.  I remember when you first said, kinda like, coming out of the fog of your dad's death, with, you know, the first few days or 10 days or something, where your life wasn't normal.  As you were emerging from that a little bit you were saying, like, "Hey, I wanna do this series," and I thought, well that's gonna be really cool to hear such fresh insights from you.  

But at the same time, wondering, I wonder if someone hasn't experienced a death recently, would they find this to be as interesting, or whatever?  And then COVID hit, so it was like, we planned this, and I was like, all right, let's see how it is in terms of relevance, and then COVID hit, and it's like, oh.  Incredibly relevant. Yeah, been blown away by how it all came together. 

And we had an original direction related to -- I think maybe the first title you had was like "Legacy" or something like that.  Is that right?  Or am I wrong? 

Drew:  No, I think it was -- yeah, I think "Legacies" or "Lessons from Dad." 

Aaron:  Oh, yeah. 

Drew:  So I mean, it's quite shaped and molded.  And I didn't want it to be completely about my dad's death, you know?  I want it to be about what you learn through those seasons in life, and so. 

Aaron:  Yeah, I think it is fascinating how, I can say this from even, death in our family.  Lauren's cousin, this was June of -- I'm trying to think, a few years ago.  It doesn't matter.  A few years ago, her cousin, who's our age, passed away in a car accident.  And student baptism was actually that same week, and so I ended up not being at student baptism, cause I was with the family up at the funeral and blah, blah, blah.  

And I just remember, even in that moment, there's something about a death that creates like an, "oh my goodness, we have to be at the funeral, and we have to process this, and there's so much I'm thinking about, and like what really matters."  And there's an urgency to that, that it feels like I'll never forget what this feels like.  But for me, I think about her cousin's death.  We're leaving the funeral saying "man, we gotta stay more connected, and we gotta talk more, and let's make that phone call, pick up the phone, let's stay connected."  And actually, I remember Lauren's brother -- sorry, I'm kinda going on a rant here.  

But probably about a year ago, Lauren's older brother was facetiming us or something.  He was like, "Guys, I feel like we're still not talking as much as we said we were going to. Remember at Dylan's funeral we were all talking about how we were going to stay so connected, and here we are a couple years later, and we're already back to where we were before," almost like, did we learn nothing from this unexpected death?  And I thought, yeah.  

There's something so true about being at a funeral where you have like, just this lucidity about what matters, clarity around -- these people matter to me so much.  I would be devastated if I lost them.  But it's just so easy to lose that clarity.  And so I think it's so key for us to hear from you as you're still in that phase of like, "I've still got very clear pictures of what matters to me, and I wanna speak to our church while those things are still on my heart." 

Drew:  Yeah, I think as people we have to learn how to keep those lessons fresh in our mind, you know?  For me, it's easy right now cause everything I do reminds me of my dad, every place I go.  I mean, my mom lives with us.  But I do think, over the course of time, it's natural for us to just let that fade, or go back to the way it used to be or living the same way. 

I think we have to learn to create constant reminders of that perspective that death or crisis gives us so we can live in a manner with the end in mind, rather than what's in front of us. 

Aaron:  Yeah, and I think that's a little bit reflective of why Moses' words are "teach us to number our days."  This isn't something that we do natively.  We don't automatically begin with the end in mind.  We don't automatically remember that our lives are gonna end or just even a picture of our own mortality.  We don't automatically remember that, and so it takes God's work in our lives to teach us to do this, like, teach me to keep track of the fact that I've got such a short life. 

Drew:  I don't think it's ever a lesson learned, like "Check that off the box, I got that."  It's a constant, daily reminder, whether it's a reminder you set in your phone, or circumstances remind you.  You know, there's certain lessons in life you have to constantly learn.  And I feel like this is one that God teaches me over and over again through the circumstances that I walk through.  It's like, "Dude, you've got plans, which are great, they're awesome, but who knows if you're ever gonna make it to your plans."  

I've been at my Dad's lakehouse this last weekend trying to get things ready for Mom and situated.  The constant thing that Mom and the family says is, "We've finally got this place the way we want it and Dad's not here."  And this was Dad's place.  It's called "Pop's Place."  And so, you just constantly need those reminders that, man, life is short.  Your plans might be great, but God's might be different, so how do we learn that lesson regularly rather than through the tragic or the crisis? 

Aaron:  Yeah.  First of all, once again, yeah, I'm so sorry. 

Drew:  It's okay, man. 

Aaron:  But, that's why Solomon's words are, he says it's better to go to a house of mourning than a house of rejoicing.  And I love that you used a wedding as a comparative, because there really is something -- there's something to be learned at a wedding.  Right?  I mean, if you've got a strong marriage or even a struggling marriage, a wedding can be a great reminder of, like, almost like a vow renewal.  If you've got a strong marriage, you're like, "Baby, I love you all over again, I'd pick you all over again."  If your marriage is struggling, it's like, "We gotta get back to this."  Whatever.  There's lessons to be learned there. 

But it's different than the, like, "I had an unfixable, irreversible reality of death."  That's what a funeral is.  It's not like, “Let's recommit ourselves to our marriage.”  You can change the trajectory of your marriage.  Once someone's passed away, they've passed away.  There's something permanent that's like, "What am I gonna do differently now?"  And so, funerals just have an incredible ability to do that.  But hopefully we don't have to go to a million funerals before we learn the lesson ourselves.  You know? 

Drew:  That's the hope.  But, I'm guilty so many times of going to a funeral.  I don't know if I'll ever go to a funeral the same way anymore.  And I think I've had such a good life in the sense of, I haven't lost anybody really close to me that has hurt this bad or stung.  You know, I've lost people, but no one like my dad, that close to me.  And I think, you know, thank the Lord that he's protected me and my family this far, but I'm telling you.  There are certain things in life that I just won't look at the same. 

You know, as a pastor, death is common.  People getting sick is common, people having heart attacks.  I think it's gonna reshape the way I pastor.  It's easy for me to get numb to, "Oh, someone died."  Nope.   Not anymore.  My heart is gonna break for people who lost people.  As a young person, I could have easily been like, "Okay, this is part of life."  It is a part of life, but that part of life really stings and really hurts.  And I think I'll be able to weep with people and mourn with people and hurt with people in a way that I just couldn't. 

Aaron:  Mmhmm.  No doubt.  That's so real for any life experience.  Once you had it.  It's the walk a mile in somebody else's shoes, but you can't walk a mile in somebody's shoes until you've done it in certain cases.  You can't really put yourself in the same framework as someone who's had a parent die or something like that until it happens, and then you're in a whole new ball game, you know? 

Drew:  Yep, and that's why I love what Moses said about refuge.  It's unique that he brought that up.  Of all the things as he's looking back at his life, I love -- and I'm learning this -- that God is the best refuge.  He offers comfort that people can't offer.  

In this season, I'm actually tired of people saying "I'm sorry."  I'm tired of people saying "Are you okay?"  And they all mean well.  I'm not saying people shouldn't do that, but there's just nothing like a refuge from God.  A place where God just -- like, sometimes even with my own family, when I wanna cry, I don't want people around me.  I wanna be with God, and I wanna just mourn with God because he is that refuge for me. 

I've read Psalms 90 so many times.  It's one of my favorite Psalms.  It's actually the first passage I ever preached.  So my first message ever --

Aaron:  That's awesome. 

Drew:  -- to a live audience was Psalms 90.  And I've read those words, like "Lord, you are our dwelling place," you know.  But again, I'm learning this.  I think we've talked about this in other podcasts.  Those words are so different to me right now in this season in my life.  A dwelling place.  Man, I dwelled with God in such a real way lately, where I'm just like, "God, I don't want to go to anybody else but you, because I believe there's a level of comfort, and security and stability that only you can give me, and that's what I need right now." 

Aaron:  And you'll come out of this stronger in that sense, your relationship with God, having been to this place with God, it doesn't go away.  Your connection to God that is now stronger, better.  What you've just described is literally a longer version of the phase "crisis brings clarity."  I mean, you now know things you didn't know.  You experienced things you could have never experienced.  You know God in a way you didn't know him before.  And that's a super bitter pill.  Nobody wants to take that.  You know, that's horrible, but it's God at work in you. 

Drew:  I also think about, you know, a lot of times when crisis hits, people run from God.  What I'm going through, I realize that people miss on some of the best moments with God when they choose in crisis to run from God, because they miss out on what I think I'm experiencing now, it's this level of comfort and stability and security that God gives.  And when you choose to run from him because you're mad at what he chose to do, or what he was in control of that didn't stop, you didn't like the circumstances.  It's crazy that, in the midst of that, people who run miss out of something that's so beautiful that God offers only in crisis, only in the crazy and uncertain times of life. 

Aaron:  I'm not gonna add anything else, cause we're gonna end right there, man.  That's really helpful, and I'm trying to do my best right now to believe that, to lodge it into my soul so that, when my crisis, like yours, comes, I'm more ready for it.  I'm glad we all get to learn along with you, and this series is gonna be all about that.  So, very much looking forward to it.  Is there anything we need to know about this coming weekend or that our people should hear from you about? 

Drew:  Couple things.  One, we're gonna talk about relationships this weekend.  It's like Rodney said.  We talk about our relationship with God first, and Rodney said the second thing is relationships with people.  And so we're gonna talk about how we create a life that matters through our relationships.  Also, we're gonna be having a baptism, so it's gonna be an awesome celebration. 

Aaron, I believe you have an inside look at that baptism, because --

Aaron:  Yeah, I do.  It'll be a little bit different because we have an executive order from our governor that requires a mask for any time which you cannot socially distance, so it's gonna be the weirdest baptism we've ever done, most likely, but we're gonna try to comply with every restriction and also make sure that we still do more and better. 

So, I got to be a part of it, and I can't wait for you guys to hear Ritchie's story.  It's a great one.  I guess I can say, it's already done.  That's probably okay to say.  Oops if it wasn't.  We recorded it this morning on Monday.  Very excited about it.  You guys'll love it.  All right.  Let's be done.  My friend, talk to you guys later.  Thanks Drew, thanks Connor, thanks to our listeners.  Please send us comments, questions, and thoughts.  We would love to interact with you.  We will talk to you next week.