John Fischer The Catch

The winning circle of astonishment

Posted on June 3, 2014 by jwfisch

A dark horse is always an unlikely candidate to win. It’s become an adjective for the unexpected. There are dark horse sports teams, dark horse politicians, dark horse contestants. Of course, anything can happen, but the chances of a dark horse winning anything are a long shot. The dark horse is someone against whom the odds are stacked. You’re taking a big chance to bet on the dark horse to win.

And yet, a dark horse might win. It wouldn’t be in the race if it didn’t have a chance. So it’s going to show up. It’s going to prepare. It’s going to train. It’s not going to take anything for granted. It’s going to run. It’s going to give its best, but if it should somehow win, it will know it got help from somewhere. There was a miracle involved. There are certainly other, more qualified horses. How did this happen? We’re not sure, but thank you anyway. We take no credit.

That’s kind of the way it is with a dark horse, and the way it is with us. Jesus has turned us into unexpected winners. He did it; we’re just reaping the benefits. By winning, a dark horse is getting what it knows it doesn’t deserve (so don’t even bring it up in case somebody made a mistake!).

That’s why dark horses do not proudly strut across the finish line; they look around as if wondering where everyone else is. It’s a metaphor that spells surprise. It’s the celebration of the unexpected – the winning circle of astonishment.

Heaven is going to be full of dark horses crossing the finish line and wondering what all the cheering is about. When you really think about it, no one is going to be in heaven who expected to be there. I once did, but now I’m just holding onto faith. I’m not counting anything to my advantage that I once counted. I’m holding onto Jesus. It’s the only thing I have going for me as far as eternity goes. Jesus is everything for a dark horse.

We are asking all who have contributed to the Catch Ministry and all who plan on contributing in the future to seriously consider becoming a MemberPartner by committing to a monthly gift of an amount of your choosing. This will go a long way towards securing a future for the Catch and a consistency upon which we can build and expand our reach for the Gospel of Welcome. Click on the photo at left to sign up.

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Just another dark horse

Posted on June 2, 2014 by jwfisch

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My friend Ron was the original dark horse. It all started with Marti suggesting I write a song about him.

“How would I do that?” I said. “You can’t just write a song about a guy named Ron.”

She thought for a minute, and then she said, “If he were an animal, what would he be?”

“A stallion,” I said, right away. “A black stallion.” That was easy, because, among friends, we called him the Italian Stallion.

Ron was born and raised in Philadelphia in an orphanage run by Christians, and spent some time in the streets. He had a tough side that would surface occasionally. Think Sylvester Stallone and you’ll be close. Though the Christianity he was exposed to as a child was strict and mostly old covenant, the gospel was implanted in him, and he later responded to it in a big way by answering a call to the ministry. While in the service he met and married Anne Marie, a charming French woman from Morocco, and when he was released, they went to Dallas Theological Seminary. He had the distinction of almost getting kicked out of seminary, and ended up following a couple of other renegades from there to a church in Palo Alto, California, which is where I ran into him and ended up being mentored by him in a discipleship program there.

Ron is a rare Christian who broke the mold of traditional thinking and as such, was well-suited to be a leader during the time of the Jesus movement when many young people were throwing off established religion, but still finding Christ. That has always been Ron’s story, too.

Ron is always discipling men. At any given time, he’ll have a group he calls his Timothies. They walk and they talk together. Ron teaches through his life, and as such, he embodies the new covenant concept of always being available for the Lord to work through you.

However, I would have to say his greatest gift is evangelism. Ron is outgoing, gregarious and can talk to anyone. He listens. He cares. People can feel that he’s for real, even people who are closed to Christianity. He has a way of bringing people out of hiding, and at 80, he’s still doing it. It’s like you discover yourself when you talk to Ron.

I talked to him just last week and he simplified the gospel down to one word: “Hello.” That’s all you need to do. Say “Hello,” and the Lord will take it from there.

He told me about one 91-year-old codger he meets every day on his walk. Ron says, “Hello,” and always stops and talks with him.

He has a sense of humor too. He told me a story about this old gentleman whom he questioned one day about his faith.

“You’re a Catholic aren’t you?” said Ron.

“A Jesuit,” the old man said, proudly.

“Well didn’t they teach you about not taking the Lord’s name in vain?”

“Oh Christ, did I do that again?”

He’s a dark horse, and he’s still leading people to freedom.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged discipleship, evangelism | 4 Comments

Free to be free

Posted on May 29, 2014 by jwfisch

“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free” (Galatians 5:1).

Freedom is self-actualizing. Freedom fulfills itself. Christ set us free in order for us to be free.

This is somewhat startling. Freedom here is presented as an end in itself. It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Not for any other reason. I have to write it again because it is so easy to miss in its blatant celebration of the obvious. Christ set us free in order for us to be free. Being free is what freedom is all about.

In my early songs I wrote a lot about freedom. I’ve wondered sometimes since why I did that. Was I merely expressing the spirit of the age – to throw off all authority in the experience and expression of self? No, I don’t think so.

I was speaking of freedom from bondage to anything other than the Spirit of God. Christianity had been, for me, up until then, the experience of slavery; i.e. slavery to religion – slavery to someone else’s idea of what I was supposed to do and be. Included in that was the slavery of trying to be something I was not.

Certainly this is the freedom of which Paul is speaking in Galatians when he writes in the very next sentence: “Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1).

Now, this slavery could be slavery to anything. In the context, it was the law (in particular the law of circumcision), but in the grand scheme of things, it could be anything. It could be:

slavery to law

slavery to rules

slavery to a stereotype

slavery to conformity

slavery to someone else’s definition of who you are

slavery to sin

slavery to someone else’s need (codependence)

slavery to expectations

slavery to one’s inability to forgive

slavery to an ideal

slavery to money, power, prestige

slavery to work

slavery to being busy

slavery to loneliness

slavery to addictions

slavery to bad habits

As I work with this, I am suddenly aware of the fact that this list has no end. I could go on and on and on and still come up with something new that can bind you or me and keep us from being free. I’m sure you could add your own things to this list (and you should, for the sole purpose of removing them).

In the story of the dark horse, after a long night of picking their way along a narrow, treacherous path, something exhilarating happens to the band of horses when they first break out into a wide, green meadow in the morning sun. They experience and express their freedom.

“Have you ever watched birds soar and wondered if they do it just for fun? Have you ever heard a coyote howl and wondered if he does it just to feel the lonely night shudder at his ghostly shrill? Have you ever caught a glimpse of horses with their ears laid back in full gallop and wondered if they do it just to hear their hooves beat the ground and echo back off canyon walls like a thousand pounding drums?”

They do. And they did.

These horses were suddenly free to be free. This is not just a nice picture to have in our minds; it is the way Christ wants us to live, and it is the way He plans to work in our lives. The result of this freedom is that we are free to be led by the Spirit from the inner workings of a heart set free, not an outer bondage. Free to be led by an inner drive, not an outer conformity. This is the law written on our hearts, not on tablets of stone. This is God’s spirit loose in our lives.

This is what Jeremiah meant when he prophesied concerning a new covenant God would make with his people. “‘I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, “Know the Lord,” because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,’ declares the Lord” (Jeremiah 31:33-34).

That is being led by the Spirit, “and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is [you guessed it] freedom” 2 Corinthians 3:17).

“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free” (Galatians 5:1).

We are asking all who have contributed to the Catch Ministry and all who plan on contributing in the future to seriously consider becoming a MemberPartner by committing to a monthly gift of an amount of your choosing. This will go a long way towards securing a future for the Catch and a consistency upon which we can build and expand our reach for the Gospel of Welcome. Click on the photo at left to sign up.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Empowering Women, freedom | 1 Comment

‘Lead on brave mare’

Posted on May 28, 2014 by jwfisch

In my story of the dark horse, the “new” dark horse wakes after his escape from the fire to find himself in the presence of a strange mare who is aggressively eating up what is left of the grass around him. And when he goes to get a drink in the nearby stream, he comes back to find her finishing up the grass where he was lying. He is a little surprised by this forward behavior, but attracted to it at the same time. A picture of John and Marti? You bet it is.

It has been said that you can only write out of what you know, and I have created the mare in this story out of what I know of my wife – what attracts me still, and challenges me about her. I have painted this mare as a bold horse with leadership gifts and total commitment. (I almost wrote “total recall,” but she has that too. Much to my chagrin, she doesn’t forget a thing.) She is simply not the sweet, submissive stereotypical Christian wife you would expect to see married to a Christian leader. Marti is what I would call boldly obedient. Oh, she’s submissive all right, but you just better get out of her way while she submits.

Marti is a dynamo – the Energizer bunny on steroids. Set her in a direction, and a few hours later she has created a PhD thesis on the subject. Not only that, she doesn’t understand how everything that is now in her mind is not in yours as well. She expects you to keep up with her, and can’t understand why you haven’t. Especially in the Christian environment, Marti does not have many equals.

I have what she calls a “push, pull” relationship to all this. In my best moments I am encouraging her on. Although you would never really want to push Marti; you would just stop trying to hold her back, which is what I am doing most of the time in my worst moments.

We mustn’t let our traditional thinking trump what is obviously someone’s gift, especially when traditional thinking is not necessarily biblical, at least as we have defined it. Had Marti been an Old Testament woman, she would have been Jael who drove a tent peg through the head of Sisera, or Deborah who lead the nation of Israel in the time of the judges, or Abigail, who warned David not to do the stupid thing he was about to do. These are not traditional “Christian” women either, which makes you want to reconsider what we call traditional.

I can no more change my wife than I can get the tree outside my window to become a frog. But I can appreciate her, marvel at who she is, and encourage her to become all that she was meant to be in Christ. Isn’t that what we want for everyone?

God is in charge of who Marti is, and who she is becoming. And so that leaves me to simply say, “Lead on, brave mare!”

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged leadership, spiritual gifts | 4 Comments

The Santa Barbara Shooting (John’s Thoughts)

Posted on May 27, 2014 by gunsim11

Tell us what you think in the comments below..

Posted in TTVB, Uncategorized | Tagged santa barbara shooting | 11 Comments

Faith and flying hooves

Posted on May 27, 2014 by jwfisch

Dark Horse is the story of one who unexpectedly wins. And in that regard, it is the story of all of us.

None of us planned on having eternal life. None of us expected to have our sins forgiven. None of us thought we would ever win anything. None of us cut ourselves loose, or set ourselves free. None of us can make one good deed flow out of our being without it being tainted in some way. None of us can forgive. None of us can count on ourselves for much of anything. These things are beyond our power to create, and out of our jurisdiction to grant. As such, this is all tremendously good news, but not so easy to receive.

A life that is free in the Spirit runs counter to our natural inclination to plan, control, and measure everything by our own yardstick. We want to be in charge. We want to hold on to our own idea of ourselves. We want to tell our own version of everything. We want to manage our image. None of us wants to let go, and yet, nothing lasting will ever come from our lives until we do.

Dark Horse is the story of one who has discovered that the answers he is seeking in life come as he propels himself forward, counting on Someone Else to guide him, show him what to do, and bring something worthy out of his life; not before he goes, but as he goes. In that, it shows us that life in the Spirit is the ultimate adventure. “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10).

If you reach your goal – if you achieve what you set out to do – you have not done it in the Spirit. You have done it in what the Bible calls “the flesh,” or everything within the human realm of expectation. If you exceed your wildest imagination, and do what you know you could never do yourself in a hundred years, you may have discovered life in the Spirit.

You cannot experience life in the Spirit by standing still. In the controlled environment of the White Horse Ranch where everything is based on appearance and pretense, there are no surprises. We are working with what we know. Accordingly, we rely on strategy, scheming and manipulation of impressions and events to get the desired results.

Outside of that controlled environment, there is only faith and flying hooves. Faith and mud. Faith and forward. Faith and discovery. Faith and adventure. Faith and Oh my gosh, did I just do that? Faith and fire. Faith and pain. Faith and exhilaration. Faith and freedom. “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free” (Galatians 5:1).

Faith is never a static thing.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged In the Spirit | 1 Comment

Standing on their shoulders

Posted on May 26, 2014 by jwfisch

Reflections on Memorial Day by Marti Fischer

This weekend as many of us here in America celebrate our brave soldiers who sacrificed their lives for our freedom, let us together stand on the shoulders of their sacrifice and sing in praise of their noble history. Listen to their lives speak loudly from the rows of monuments on green hillsides, asking us to face the darkness today and be alert with our own drawn sword. “For the love of justice,” they whisper, “do the same.”

We can do nothing less.

The invasion has long been underway. Armed with the sword of life, we too climb into transports everyday. We are dropped into vital areas everywhere, always leaving a part of ourselves behind on every battlefield. This is because larger forces are at work here, and therefore the will of Christ Jesus, our Lord, is that we obey.

Without these soldiers – the men and women at peace, now asleep – there would be no understanding among our current generation of what it is to stand up against the enemy, take beatings without a whimper, and accept triumphs without boasting. These are men and women who went, and would go again, to hell and back, to preserve what is right, and what is just.

We can do nothing less.

We as Christians have so much more to do today than just salute our fallen. They are not only our heroes. They are our role models. They walked the walk in history that Christ has asked us to walk, spiritually, everyday such as:

Fighting the fire that roars through our human house. The degree to which we are not aware of this, is the degree to which we are losing.
Regardless of how we arrive at a crisis point, do the right thing for the right reasons.
Learn to “help a buddy.”
Every soldier probably complained about the war they fought, found fault with a superior, and muttered about the duty. Universally, however, strangers are quickly friends who come alongside, and always show up when needed.
Today we fight against opposing forces of greater strength and numbers, and yet He who is in us is greater than he who is in the world.
There is no such thing as a tiny or insignificant conflict.
The service of those we honor is rarely viewed as a stepping stone to something “greater,” nor is it for us.
Most are volunteers who, by choice, found honor in others.

These are our fallen heroes – dark horses every one – and they died heading straight for the enemy camp. We, as Catch citizens and fellow believers can do nothing less.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Memorial Day | 4 Comments

John responds to recent bombings in China and Nigeria

Posted on May 23, 2014 by gunsim11

What do you think? Post a comment below. Share this video on Facebook or Twitter.

Posted in TTVB | Tagged attack, Bombing in China, Bombing in Nigeria, faith, love, put a little love in your heart, terrorism, The Catch | 3 Comments

Dark Horse: Escape!

Posted on May 23, 2014 by jwfisch

“What’s going on here?” I demanded as I raced in to prevent the lead stallion from bullying the mare. He was obviously trying to force her to stay back with the herd and she was putting up quite a fight. “You said these horses were free to go.”

“The foolish stallions may run where they will. I did not mean that my favorite mare was free to kill herself following a mad horse.”

His flaring nostrils and flattened ears warned me he was ready to lunge. Without taking my eyes from him, I called back to the mare to lead the stallions to the pool behind the falls and follow it into the mountain. I would catch up with them. As they broke for the stream behind us, the stallion shouted at them, “There’s Black Magic behind that falls!”

“I am beginning to wonder,” I said, clearly and loudly for all to hear, “if it’s Black Magic or your magic that is keeping these horses in captivity here.”

At that, he went for me.

Now I am not a fighter. I had lived a sheltered ranch horse life, and my only fighting experience was in play — the usual high-spirited stallion stuff. I felt totally unprepared for an encounter with an enraged, battle-scarred range horse.

There would have been no chance for me in the daylight. But at night, the light for the White One gave me a distinct advantage. I was fighting a wild stallion, but he was fighting a stallion and the night.

It was during this fight that I realized those who don’t believe in the White One cannot see the light in the eyes of those who do. Had he seen the twin flames of my eyes, he would have had a target. As it was, most of his slicing kicks and vicious bites just missed my twisting, turning body.

I had no desire to hurt or cripple the proud stallion. I didn’t want to win or lose. My whole desire was to give the others time to flee — and then look for my own chance to escape. That chance came when I caught him rearing. He wanted to slash down on me with his sharp front hooves — but he never got the chance. Instead, I lunged and forced my whole weight against the side of his belly.

The timing was perfect. He was caught completely by surprise, and his legs flew out from beneath him. For a moment, he seemed suspended in midair. Then came a sickening thud and the loud grunt of air that smashed from his lungs as he hit the rock-hard ground.

The stallion’s fall gave me the chance I had been waiting for. With blood pounding in my head and a warm flow of it trickling into my eyes, I ran for the falls. I knew that once I hit the pool I would be safe. The stallion would not violate his own warning about the Black Magic.

Looking behind me, I could see him pursuing, but too far back to be of any concern. I found myself feeling glad he wasn’t hurt and feeling genuinely sorry for him. The real “magic” at work here was pride. Pride that kept him prisoner in a valley of ashes. Pride that fed his dominance over the weaker ones who ran in his trail.

With a flying leap, I plunged once more onto the dark waters. The pool’s warmth enveloped me, bathing my wounds and calming my racing heart for the tedious crawl through the tunnel.

Once again, the strange, sourceless light led me. As I picked my way along, I noticed the eerie beauty of this watery shaft. There were pointed spines of rock hanging from the ceiling, and others, like seedlings of stone, that seemed to sprout up from the cave floor. Still others, I could tell, had made complete columns from top to bottom. No more. Like so many weathered corral planks, they had been kicked aside by the fleeing horses in front of me. And in my mind’s eye I could imagine the mare smashing her way through this cavern, leading her friends to freedom. What a queen among horses! She had jumped into following the White One with everything she had, and I loved her.

Just when I was beginning to wonder why I hadn’t caught up with them yet, I noticed that the dim light had seemed to focus in countless glowing points. Then, with a start, I realized I was looking into the star-washed night through a cave opening.

Stumbling out into the cool night air, I was immediately beset by five excited horses. The mare was licking the blood away from a tear in my ear. Then she walked around me, looking me over with a quick appraising gaze. “You have a gash on your hip,” she said, “but it will heal. A few cuts and scratches. You’ll be fine. You are a brave one, aren’t you? Tell us what happened.”

“The White One gave me light,” I said. “I was able to catch the stallion off balance and knock him over long enough to make my break.”

“Is he all right?” she asked.

“Yes. He ran after me, but mostly for show, I think. He had no intention of following.”

“He is such a prideful horse,” she said with pity. “And to think that all along we were just a short trip away from freedom.”

“Who are these other horses?” I asked.

“They are two mares who slipped away during the fight.”

One of them spoke up. “When you said it was the stallion and not the magic that was keeping us there, it all made sense.”

I was overjoyed. My conflict had played a part in freeing two more horses. The other two I recognized as two of the three who had originally left with us, but now there was a strong, steady light burning in their eyes.

The mare suddenly spoke with a firm urgency that made us all straighten up.

“I have checked out our position,” she said. “As you can see, we have emerged from the underground stream fed by the lake in front of us here. On the other side of the lake is a relatively short, rocky descent to the foothills. From there we can once again pick up the river that comes from out of those mountains in the distance. I saw its reflection in the moonlight. I think we should run the river until dawn and take shelter where we can.”

I stood staring at her, in spite of myself. Adventure danced in her eyes, and her graceful hooves pawed the ground with impatience. I could only shake my head in wonder.

“Lead on, brave mare!”

I stood for a moment and watched them leap across the rocks and dash to the far side of the lake. I watched them drop out of sight, and then reappear, one by one, on the smooth ground below, their eyes now points of light. One, two, three, four, five racing silhouettes, galloping hard and free in the joy of the White One.

Then, with a loud whinny to no one in particular, I lifted my forelegs to the starry sky and set off to join them.

THE END

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged discipleship | 2 Comments

Dark Horse: Confrontation

Posted on May 22, 2014 by jwfisch

We continued on until we reached the wall where the path they called Death Walk began, and I was able to see the truth about this place. Earlier in the day when I was here, the path had appeared to run up the canyon wall all the way to the top. But now, I could see that it disappeared into the canyon wall halfway up. It was an illusion by day; but by night, with the aid of the White One’s eyes, I could understand how so many horses had perished here.

“This is why we travel at night,” I said. “This is not an exit at all. It’s a trap. Come on, follow me.”

With that, I took off at a run for the waterfall. When we got there I knew just what to do.

“Wait here,” I said to the others. “There may be another way — an escape route behind the falls.”

“There’s Black Magic behind those falls!” squealed one of the stallions.

“The White One is stronger than any magic. Where he leads, we have nothing to fear.”

“I’m coming with you,” said the mare. “I don’t want to miss anything.”

“No. It’s best you stay. The others need your eyes right now … until they begin to see on their own. Without either one of us here, they might talk themselves into going back.”

“All right.” She was disappointed; almost trembling with hunger for adventure.

I crossed to the other side of the stream and followed the canyon wall in the direction of the falls. It was slippery going finding the pool again, and when I did, I was in a different spot; higher above the pool than I was earlier. I thought about finding a lower place to jump from but I didn’t have time. I would have to jump from here.

It took all the faith I could muster, but I called to the White One for help and jumped. Once again, this pool took my weight and I swam further into the earth, marveling at the warmth of the water and how the White One was leading me. I had peered into caves before and found them to be blacker than any night. But here there was a dim, blue glow that seemed to come from the rocks themselves — as if they had been ordered to cooperate with our escape. The glow moved along with me as the water grew shallow and the cavern turned into a tunnel. I followed the tunnel until I was confident that this was a passageway formed by an underground stream. Our only hope now was that it remained passable for a horse and that it would lead us out. But that we would have to find out together.

Bursting out of the pool and away from the falls, I immediately sensed danger. I could hear sounds of a great commotion, even over the cascading waterfall. What I saw filled my heart with dread. There was going to have to be a confrontation. Should they choose to go back, the young stallions would not have to return to the herd. The herd had come to us.

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