Honorable Disagreement

A Baptist pastor in Tempe, AZ preached a sermon two weeks that created a bit of buzz. In fact, seriously looking men in black suits who talk into their sleeves are paying attention to it. The sermon was entitled “Why I Hate Barack Obama.” In the sermon, the preacher told his church that he regularly prays for the president's death.

If you want to know how I'd like to see Obama die, I'd like him to die of natural causes. I don't want him to be a martyr, we don't need another holiday. I'd like to see him die, like Ted Kennedy, of brain cancer.

Tell me again why we have such trouble today convincing people that Christianity is a good, honorable and reasonable way to live? We are told to pray for our enemies (Luke 6:27-28), but I doubt Jesus meant to pray for them to die of a horrible disease! You know, if you ask anyone else to kill a person for you, that is criminal conspiracy. We have been assured that the US Secret Service is taking the matter seriously.

It is generally believed that Paul and Peter were both executed during the persecution by Nero after the Great Fire of Rome in AD. 64. According to Roman historian Tacitus, Nero launched these persecutions after blaming Christians for the fire to deflect suspicion from himself. Most Roman historians portray Nero as an egotistical, extravagant and brutal tyrant. Major historical sources like Tacitus, Suetonius and Cassius Dio really have few complementary things to say about Nero. Christian writers like Tertullian and Eusebius condemn Nero as the persecutor of Christians and the killer of Paul and Peter. Augustine believed that Nero was the Antichrist.

So maybe Nero was responsible for the deaths of Paul and Peter. Nero certainly was responsible for the deaths of many Christians. So I wonder what Peter and Paul would have said about the administration of Caesar Nero? We don’t have to guess; they did speak about him.

I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone—for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. (1 Timothy 2:1-4)

Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every authority instituted among men: whether to the king, as the supreme authority, or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right. For it is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men. Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God. Show proper respect to everyone: Love the brotherhood of believers, fear God, honor the king. (1 Peter 2:13-17)

Paul and Peter taught Christians pray for the king and those in authority… even if that king is Nero.

So why do so many Christians seem to be so smug and justified in their constant mean-spirited, demeaning, and vitriolic ridicule and derision of the president? OK, so you don’t agree with his proposed overhaul the health system? Well, stand in line. But does anyone seriously think that the president (this one or any other) is as evil as Nero? Paul and Peter told Christians to pray for and honor Nero. We are given the right by our Constitution to disagree with our leaders. But we are given the commandment by God to pray for and honor them.

According to Nancy Reagan, Senator Kennedy and President Reagan were great friends despite being so far across the aisle on most issues that they could barely see one another! One can disagree with another's politics while remaining honorable. One can be adamantly opposed to a president's agenda while still being respectful. I'm thankful God has blessed us to live in a country where disagreement with leaders is our Constitutional right. We must never think that the Constitution gives us the right to the clear command of God.

Practicing What We Preach

What is wrong with our world today? I was cleaning out my files and ran across the following old quotes from some old articles. All of these quotes were written by the same preacher in the mid-to-late 70's. And though written more than 40 years ago, they serve to illustrate what’s wrong with our world today.

Venereal disease is epidemic in the land. Homes are decaying and marriages are disintegrating at a frightened pace. Personal integrity is rapidly disappearing across our land. (Gospel Light, April, 1976)

An all wise Creator made the distinct sexual natures of men and women and assigned their unique roles in life. True happiness comes to men and women who understand their proper sexual role and observe it. (Gospel Advocate, Jan 1978)

Immorality is brazenly extending its territory. Porno shops, massage parlors and nude bars are in almost every city... Even more serious is the deterioration of marriage and the home. Adultery, desertion, and divorce are now commonplace. (Gospel Light, August 1979)

The face of every large American city is covered with ugly sores. There are massage parlors, adult book stores, X-rated movies, nude bars and gay hangouts. Every faithful Christian is against such vices as these. (Gospel Light, Nov 1979)

These statements were made before the AIDS epidemic or internet pornography or gay marriage. But they seem curiously relevant today, and they illustrate what is wrong in our world. What is wrong is YOU and ME and US.

The preacher who wrote these articles was having multiple adulterous relationships over a long period of time with several different women in churches where he preached. Even as he was known to others as a moral crusader, he was failing at living the moral life he proclaimed. What was wrong was not what he preached but what he practiced.

Maybe what is wrong with out world is that those of us who say we believe the truth are so woefully inadequate at living the truth. It is easy to point at the failings of our culture, for they are many. But maybe we need to deal with the log in our eye so we can better see how to remove the speck in the eye of others.

If the world sees the holiness of God reflected in our lives, then maybe then they will listen when we have something to say about morality. Maybe if the world sees the joy of the Lord reflected in our hearts, then maybe they will listen when we talk about the best way to live life. Maybe of the world sees the love of Christ reflected in how we deal with broken people, then maybe they will listen when we talk about repentance and redemption.

I’m not sure anyone will pay much attention to what we preach until we practice what we preach. But speaking from personal experience, it’s a lot easier to just preach.

School Daze?

Several elementary school students in Gainesville, FL were sent home on the very first day of school last week for violating the school's dress code policy. It seems that these children (one only 10 years old) wore a T-shirts imprinted with the slogan “Islam is of the Devil” to school. Their church decided that this would be a good outreach ministry to the school community. The children weren’t suspended; they were simply sent home to change into more school-appropriate clothing.

Have you ever wondered if it would be much easier to teach people about Christ if it weren’t for some Christians? Come on! Did the Dove World Outreach Center (the church that produced the T-shirts) really think that anyone is going to be positively influenced by such a stunt? Is anyone going to say, “Hey, I wondered where Islam came from, but now I know it's from the devil because it says so right there on that T-shirt?” Did Paul go to the Areopagus in Athens to speak to pagans wearing a “Zeus of is the Devil” toga? Do people really think non-believers will take Jesus MORE seriously because people send their kids to school with T-shirts denouncing other religions? All that sun in Florida must be baking people brains.

Whether we like it or admit it or not, we live today in a multicultural world-- the same kind of world that Paul lived in. It is a world in which every truth is accepted and no truth is accepted, a world where there are many gods and no god at all. In our world, Christianity is just one idea in a marketplace of ideas. Sure, Christianity is different-- it happens to be true. But if we want non-Christian people to ever accept Christianity as true, then belittling other beliefs is the absolute wrong way to go about it! On the Areopagus, Paul was actually rather complimentary and showed a great deal of respect in sharing the gospel with pagan professors (See Acts 17:22-31).

The right way to get people to take Christ and Christianity seriously is to show gentleness and respect toward non-believers as we live a life that shows that Christianity works. That is precisely what Peter tells us in 1 Peter 3:15-16

But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.

Gentleness and respect. Good behavior. Reason for the hope you have. These are the things that will cause others to respect what we believe. If our Christian faith doesn't work in making us better people, then why should non-Christians believe it anyway?

A Really Good Day

Yesterday was a really good day. Paul Renganathan, a missionary we help to support in Chennai, India was with us. Paul is doing a marvelous work spreading the gospel and building up God’s people there. He shared some of the work that is being done in Chennai and across India in our Bible class time, and then he preached for us during the worship hour. I have uploaded to YouTube a short version of the video he shared with us.

I had to cut the video down to fit YouTube's limitations, so there is actually even more going on in Chennai. Keep this truly amazing work in your prayers. Paul generally is here while Lynn and I are gone to Pepperdine, so it was a treat to hear his presentation this year. It was also a treat to join Paul and several of our members for a buffet lunch at an Indian restaurant Saturday. Thanks Cathy and Steve for a great lunch!

We were on vacation last week and Paul preached for us this week… so this was the third time in 30 years that I’ve gone two weeks in a row without preaching. That was traumatic for me. OK, it was probably quite pleasant for everyone else, but I had a hard time. I guess I feel better when I keep this illusion going that Denbigh can’t get along without me, but they always seem to get along just fine.

A Sign from God?

Last week, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America met in Minneapolis to approve a resolution that lifts the ban of practicing gay and lesbian people from their clergy. ELCA churches can now to hire homosexuals who are in “committed relationships” to serve as ministers. This makes the ELCA the second (I believe) large mainline protestant denomination to make this move. I believe this is wrong, but it’s not what I want to talk about today.

It seems that while the ELCA was in Minneapolis for their meting, there was also an unexpected, rapidly-developing tornado that visited the city. The ELCA meeting was to begin at 2:00 p.m. and the tornado touched down at about 2:00 p.m. Two buildings damaged by the twister were the Minneapolis Convention Center (where the ELCA was meeting) and Central Lutheran (an ELCA church across the street). That is a very interesting coincidence, isn’t it?

I read two very interesting blogs that were theological reflections on this event. Both writers disagree with the ELCA decision and believe that homosexually is a sin. Both serve churches in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. Both take a totally different slant on their in-town tornado. The first blog is by John Piper who sees the tornado as a warning to the ELCA to turn from their approval of sin. The second blog is by Greg Boyd who wonders what the message is of the other 1300 or so tornados that touch down each year and why so few hit the liberal states that most promote homosexuality (Massachusetts, New York, Vermont) and why so many hit the more conservative Bible Belt states that make up tornado alley. Read both of the blogs and tell me what you think.

As we mentioned last night in class, while we are on firm ground talking about what God has done (as revealed in scripture), it is pretty arrogant to point to a current event (like a tornado for example) and talk like we know what God is doing. Could God send a tornado as a gentle reminder? In the book of Job, a tornado was sent by Satan to kill Job’s family and then later God spoke to Job out of a tornado. Without the book of job, we would have no idea from where those storms came. Could the AIDS epidemic be God’s judgment on sin? Or could the AIDS epidemic rather be God providing his church with a great opportunity to minister to marginalized people?

I think we need to be very careful before we speak as God’s interpreter of current events. Ecclesiastes 5:7 reminds us, "Much dreaming and many words are meaningless. Therefore stand in awe of God."

A Mixed-Message?

There is an interesting article in Christianity Today and another on MSNBC on abstinence, marriage and the message that young people often hear in Evangelical churches. Churches do stress the importance of sexual purity in the Christian life. Programs like “True Love Waits” stress the importance of chastity and holiness for Christian young people. While the emphasis on chastity is Biblical and unchanging, what has changed is the church’s attitudes toward marriage itself. Christian young adults are pressured by the culture and often by their parents and church to postpone marriage until they are finished with school, have gained life experience, and are economically stable. So there is this double message of no sex before marriage AND waiting before you get married.

Mark Regnerus, a University of Texas sociologist and author of the Christianity Today article ("The Case for Early Marriage") suggests that while the church has stressed chastity, we have also to a degree devalued marriage by “by discouraging it and delaying it.” He goes on to suggest that the church’s emphasis on chastity without a similar emphasis on marriage hasn’t worked very well. He says that about “80 percent of unmarried, church-going, conservative Protestants who are currently dating someone are having sex of some sort.” Christians aren’t that much more likely to wait for marriage than non-Christians. He goes on “I'm certainly not suggesting that they cannot abstain. I'm suggesting that in the domain of sex, most of them don't and won't.”

So is the point to make get our kids are married by the end of high school? Of course not. We need to do a better job of teaching the Biblical mandate of sexual purity and chastity. We need to do a better job of preparing our kids for the discipline, self-sacrifice, and faith that is required for successful marriage. We need to do a better job of teaching our children that marriage is a covenant and that divorce is not an option. But maybe we need to do a better job of realizing the incredible pressure created by those dual expectations of waiting for sex until marriage and waiting for marriage until after college-and-career launch. And maybe we need to remember that only one of those two messages is Biblical and non-negotiable.

At the Crocodile Dock

The level of excitement and exhaustion just went up a megaton around here-- VBS began last night with a roar. The building was full to the brim with K-5 graders running and hooping and learning. We also have an unofficial toddler class made up of children in our church, many of whose parents are working in the VBS. We can't advertise that class because we already have just about more than we can handle. In fact, we just about had as many kids as we could handle. As Kati was making the “everyone bring your friends tomorrow” speech, there were folks in the back wondering where would put their friends! I’m not sure what the fire marshal would say the limit is for elementary school kids in our building, but we seemed to be pushing the saturation point last night.

I did learn something about communication last night. The question, “Will you do the VBS opening” can have two meanings. It can mean, “Will you do the WHOLE opening, worship, Bible story setup, opening skit and memory verse?” It can also mean, “Will you do the opening dramatic skit.” When the VBS director and the VBS volunteer interpret that question differently, the result is blank stares by everyone. My nomination for sport of the week is Kati Rutherford who jumped in with 3 minutes notice and stood in the gap between a bunch of screaming kids and pandemonium. Great job, Kati!

I remember VBS when I was a kid as being cookies and Kool-Aid, some Popsicle sticks glued together, and some pretty long Bible lessons with a few more flannel-graph visual aids than normal. (If you don’t know what flannel-graph is, it was kinda like PowerPoint made out of an early form of Velcro). In fact, that was pretty much what VBS was for many years after I came to Denbigh. Well, this isn’t your father’s VBS. All kinds of movement and song and dance (literally) that all point to and revolve around a Bible story and application. The kids really seem to enjoy it, and the adult workers I spoke to last night really enjoyed it too. (I was a bit selective and to who I talked to and when).

Watching these little munchkins so excited about being here and singing and learning about God, it’s really worth all the trouble… that other people go to!

A Bowl of Cereal

When I was a kid, we used to have these big family reunions. And I do mean big. My great-grandfather and great-grandmother had 12 kids who survived to adulthood. Most of their children had large families as well, so when the Copeland clan got together for a family reunion, it was a really big deal! This extended family eventually become so extended that these reunions became more and more difficult to pull off. And because that first generation of Copeland kids have almost all gone on to another family reunion, the big one here on earth isn’t the same. I'm not even sure they happen anymore.

Grandmother used to love to tell the story of the social faux pas I committed at our family reunion when I was 5 or 6 years old. The family then met at my great-grandmother’s house (next door to Grandmother’s) during Christmas. It seems that (and mind you that I’ve never had any external verification of this event) we were all standing before the grand table (likely several tables) loaded down with all manner of meats and vegetables (most of them home-grown) of all shapes and varieties. But as I looked over that table containing more food than produced by some small counties, I turned up my nose and said, “I want a bowl of cereal!” Grandmother would just cackle when she told that story… over and over.

OK, only a dumb kid would settle for cereal in the middle of a banquet feast! But I wonder if that isn’t what we do with God. God has placed within each of us a holy hunger for Himself. David writes in Psalm 63:1, “O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” He goes on to say in verse 5, “My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you.” David knew that his deepest hunger was for God and that he only could be satisfied by God. Each of us has that same God-shaped void that can only be filled by God.

And yet we settle for a bowl of Cheerios. That than fill ourselves with God and His goodness, we choose to fill our lives with money, things, pleasure, entertainment and the list goes on. God wants to full us with Himself, and we settle for other things that never quite seem to fill us at all. God wants to us to dine at his table and be filled with this goodness. And we decide to have a bowl of cereal.

Angels and Demons

Tomorrow night, I will close a rather long Wednesday night class series that I shamelessly entitled “Angels and Demons.” It has nothing to do with the Dan Brown thriller (I still haven’t seen the movie yet). This series was a look at what the Bible says about angels and demons, two topics that I have really not been drawn to much over the years. What surprised me (and shouldn’t have) was that angels are all over the Bible. I thought angels kinda kick things off and then show up on special missions, like announcing the birth of Jesus, and then kinda fade off the scene. Nope! Angels are scattered all over the Bible, and they are more common in the New Testament that they are in the Old. For example, a quick count shows that angels are mentioned 24 times in Luke and 22 times in Acts… and 13 times in Hebrews. In the Old Testament, Zechariah (20), Judges (17) and Genesis (15) lead the way. Oh yeah, angels are mentioned 77 times in the book of Revelation. On the other hand, demons are mentioned 73 times in the Bible, and 63 times are in the gospels.

What conclusions do I draw from this? I conclude that angels are mentioned a lot in the Bible. How’s that for profound? OK, I’ll go a little further. When angels showed up in the Bible, people usually didn’t recognized them as angels and were shocked and terrified when they did realize that the man they were talked to wasn’t a man but a messenger from God. In other words, people in Bible times expected angels to show up about as much as you and I expect angels to show up, and yet they showed up… a lot. So maybe angels today are doing more than just strumming harps in heaven and are still ministering spirits to the people of God. If we ever do meet an angels that we recognize as an angels, it would be like meeting Roma Downey with special effects back-lighting.

What about demons? When demons show up in the gospels, they are confronted and overcome by the power of Christ. Demons are also mentioned in the epistles, those instructional letters to the church, but there is no instruction on how to cast out demons, bind demons, or name the demon that’s in control of Cleveland. The emphasis in the epistles is on living holy lives, resisting temptation and not giving the devil a foothold in our lives. We can imagine a world like Ashton in This Present Darkness where demons are flying all over the place and are battled back by angels. But the impact on our lives are the same—we are to pray and watch and live holy lives.

Here is a YouTube of a skit Lynn and Kati’s cabin did that portrays how life our lives may be impacted by angels and demons. Is this how it really goes? Maybe.

Faith in Public Life

Dr. Francis Collins was recently nominated by President Obama to head the National Institutes of Health. There seems to be a growing number of scientists and politicians that believe the President has made a great mistake. No one doubts that Dr. Collins is qualified for the job. Collins discovered in 1989 the gene that causes cystic fibrosis. He became the director of the group that in 1993 would sequence the entire human genome. He has been politically adroit enough to appropriate support and funds for his genetic research, and most people believe that he would make a wonderful director for the NIH.

So what is the problem? Is Dr. Collins an axe-murder? A soviet spy? A Republican? No, he is a Christian. He believes that a person can both be rational and also a believer. He is the author of The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, and he toured the country pushing his book (as all authors are required to do). There are some who worry that allowing such a vocal believer to head the NIH is too dicey to be wise. After all, the man believes that human morality is given to us by God and that we are ultimately responsible to him. Clearly he can’t be trusted to run a government agency! One critic of Dr. Collins says this

Any scientist who happens to practice a religion and is honest enough to admit it knows that science is based on empirical evidence while religion is based on the ether of faith and it is unlikely under the harsh light of reason and logic for the two to meet and make sense. Together they make (non)sense.

Sorry, but that sounds a bit like “Any one smart enough to know anything at all should know enough to agree with me.” And they worry Dr. Collins is too dogmatic?

We live in a postmodern, post-Christian world where there are multiple worldviews and points of view. Christianity no longer enjoys majority status in people presuppositions— not everyone accepts the Bible as the “Good Book” or believes there is a God. I truly believe that most of Christianity's “intramural” theological squabbles make no sense in this age of many gods and no god at all. We shouldn’t be surprised that our faith is looked down upon. Our job is not, I believe, to use political clout to move the country back to its Christian roots (if it indeed really had such roots).

Our job is to live such holy lives of integrity that the unbelieving world may still quibble with the truthfulness of our faith but can’t doubt the fact that it works. If all Christians lived humble, self-controlled, loving, peaceful lives (as Christ demands), then most of the arguments against Christians in public life would vanish. If we want people to respect Christianity again, then we’re going to have to do something radical. We're going to have to live it!

Camp Idlewild 2009

Another year of Camp Idlewild is in the books. I was at camp for the 40th anniversary of the lunar landing; I was also at Idlewild when Armstrong took that big step for mankind 40 years ago! To say that camp has been a big part of my life is an understatement. I delivered my first sermon (3 minutes long) at camp. I met my wife at camp (in fact, Lynn's first counselor at age 9 was my mother). I made one of the greatest catches in the history of softball at camp (over the shoulder at full speed diving into the weeds… Willie Mays called to inquire about my technique). I took Lynn to camp in 1977 to give her an engagement ring. I have lots of good memories at Camp Idlewild. OK, there are some not so good ones too, but I won’t go into those.

We made some more very good memories this year at camp. For the second year in a row, I directed the Junior (Middle School) week. We had 18 girls and 16 boys and a full compliment of staff-- and everyone worked together to make this one of the best weeks ever. This was the most cooperative and accommodating bunch of middle-schoolers I’ve ever seen. For example, they wanted very badly to play pranks on each other, but I kept telling them “No.” They would shrug and say, “OK,” and they didn't. Well they did pull a little bitsy prank at the prodding of their counselors on Friday night… and then felt guilty about it. What great kids!

Most of my staff and 16 of the 34 campers were from Denbigh (counting some former members now at Carrsville). We also had 4 or 5 camp mascots (staff brats) who really added a lot. When I saw Kate and Emily climbing to the top of a tall tree, they added gray hairs. The kids really liked singing, and we had some great devotional times. We had a bunch of the kids (and a few adults) come up on stage and sing “This is How We Overcome” Sunday morning, complete with the spinning around and yelling Whoop-Whoop, Aye-Aye’s… that was great.

Then there was the “Great Yellow Jacket Incident of 2009.” Have you seen those cartoons where a swarm of bees chase someone? Well, it’s no cartoon. A swarm of angry yellow jackets followed us from the archery range through the amphitheater around the old canteen building and into the dining hall. We had several campers stung—Kacie won the ribbon for most bee stings with 14. But everyone was brave and we survived… many of the yellow jackets did not!

Here's a YouTube video of our week. Hope you like it. Hope you'll join us next year!

Where We Hang Our Hat

In the 1890s there was a small Baptist church in Mayfield County, Kentucky. The church had two deacons who were constantly arguing and bickering over some issue or the other. One of them put up a small wooden peg on the back wall so the pastor could hang up his hat. When the other deacon discovered the peg, he was outraged. “How dare you put a peg in the wall without first consulting me!” The people in the church took sides and the congregation eventually split. Today the residents of Mayfield County still refer to the two churches as Peg Baptist Church and Anti-Peg Baptist Church.

For the record, we’re neither Peg-ite nor Anti-Pegite; we’re Non-Peg-ite, just as the Bible teaches! But before we get too smug, we need to remember that we have something of a history of division in our churches, maybe over things just as silly. At the same time the Peg-ite and Anti-Pegite controversy raged in Mayfield, our churches were splitting over the use of instrumental music in worship and how missionaries could be and should be supported. We have divided over how many cups can be used in communion and how many Bible classes are permitted. We have divided over what we believe will happen at the end of time (rather than just waiting to find out). We’ve even divided over whether or not we should pay preachers! Heretics!

So why haven’t we done a better job reaching the world for Jesus? It seems to me that Jesus did the hard part, right? He loved us enough to die for us. All we have to do is love Him enough to love each other. Ultimately, what the cross was about is reconciliation. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:18-19—

All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.

Maybe the world looks at Christ’s church and poorly we get along with each other and has decided that this “ministry of reconciliation” stuff just doesn’t work very well!

Watch Your Step!

Fifteen year old Alexa Longueira was just doing what teens do—she was walking along texting one of her friends. And the DEP crew on Staten Island was doing what they do— preparing to enter the sewers to protect (DEP = Department of Environmental Protection) and serve. What they did wrong was to remove the manhole cover BEFORE they put out the orange safety cones. And what Alexa did wrong was continue her walking and text without looking where she was going. Without pausing her texting, she plunged through the open manhole and into the yuck below. She must have been using a Blackberry because iPhones surely have an open manhole app to warn of things like that. Or they should have. Fortunately, Alexa suffered only fright, a few scrapes and some foul smelling clothes. Her family, of course, is going to sue.

The same thing happens to us in our Christian life if we aren’t careful. We can be rambling along not really paying attention spiritual and walk right into one of Satan’s traps. Brian Simmons, in the Pepperdine video we watched Sunday night, told about a man named “Bob” who was just walking along, not realizing that he was becoming more and more friendly with an attractive co-worker until they went on a business trip together. Before he knew it, we tumbled through the manhole into the yuck below. If we aren’t waling carefully, those kinds of tumbles await us all.

In Ephesians 5:15-16, Paul says, “Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.” Literally, what Paul says is “Look carefully then how you walk” (ESV). Commentators actually seem split as to whether the adverb “carefully” actually modifies the word "look" or the word “walk.” Is Paul saying we are to “look carefully so we can walk” or to “look so we can walk carefully?” Well, if Alexa had been doing EITHER, she would not have tumbled into the manhole. And if Bob would have done either, he would not have tumbled either.

One of Jesus’ most favorite command was, “What I say to you, I say to everyone: ‘Watch!’” (Mark 13:37) He warns us to watch out for a lot of things-- false prophets (Matt 7:15), those who deceive us (Matt 24:4), coming of the Lord (Matt 24:42), not to fall into temptation (Matt 26:41). Spiritual inattention invariably leads to a fall. Ask Alexa or Bob... or yourself.

Revenge of the Folk Singer

What a great way to deal with customer non-service. Last year a musician named Dave Carroll was traveling on to Nebraska on United Airlines. While on the ground in Chicago, Carroll saw his $3500 Taylor guitar being tossed around by airline baggage handlers. Sure enough, the guitar was severely damaged. While United never denied the damage, Carroll got the expert run-around from various and sundry airline employees for nine months. Everyone was to blame except for United, and finally he was given the airline’s official “NO” to his repeated requests for compensation.

What is one to do? Well, most of us would just be out of luck, but Carroll is a musician. So he did what musicians do—he wrote a song and created a music video about his experience. In fact, what he promised the United employee that gave him the final “NO” (Ms. Irlweg) was that he would write three songs about his United experience and make You-Tube videos for each. Well, the first song and video is done, and it has become an Internet sensation. United now knows that you don’t tug on Superman’s cape, you don’t spit into the wind, you don’t pulls the mask off the ol’ Lone Ranger and you don’t break Dave Carroll’s Taylor guitar.



United has now (after the video received 2.5 million hits on YouTube) admitted its responsibility and offered full compensation, but Carroll has asked that they donate the money the charity. Evidently he is too busy working on his second video to go pick up their check. As Jay Guin (on whose blog I first saw this) put it, “This is satisfying at a very deep level.” BTW, if Carroll would have been flying on Delta, the song would have been “Delta Loses Guitars.”

The Man in the Mirror

I’ve been walking around the last couple of days humming Michael Jackson tunes. I never was really a huge fan, and I am surprised how easily (and often) these songs keep popping into my mind this week. It seems that my favorites (according to what I keep humming) are “Man in the Mirror” (which I’ve always liked) and “Billy Jean” (which I didn’t like, but I keep humming for some reason). Someone has said that Michael Jackson songs have been the “soundtrack of our lives,” and maybe that is true. But if I don’t stop humming these songs, I’m going to break into a moonwalk!

I watched excerpts from the Jackson memorial where a lot of people spoke of their close connection to Michael. But the sad truth seems to be that no one was really close to Michael Jackson, at least over any period of time. Diane Diamond, a journalist who covered Jackson for years and wrote a 2005 biography said it was “absolutely a revolving door” in his life as Jackson fired employees, feuded with family, and shunned collaborates and close friends who dared to disagree with him. Diamond says, “There were constantly new people in his life. He didn't want anyone to tell him what to do.”

Despite what was said at his funeral, Michael Jackson was a strange man. From the cartoonish way he dressed, to his odd (I hope only odd) behavior toward young boys, to the freakish plastic surgery— Jackson was strange. And I can’t help but wonder of some of that bizarre behavior was the result of the fact that no one was in his life to could tell him, “Michael, uhh, that’s really not a good idea.” What he had were enablers and yes-men who took his money and let him be just as strange as he wanted to be. Maybe the drugs that seemed to have killed him would not have been around if he would have listened to people who loved him. No was there to help him really look at the man in mirror and nudge him toward changing his ways.

God didn’t make any of us to live unaccountable lives. We need a relationship with God, but we also need relationships with other people who will call us into account and keep us honest to ourselves and God. James says, “Make this your common practice: Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you can live together whole and healed” (James 5:16, The Message). We need to make ourselves accountable to others so that when we get a bit strange, we have people who can tell us.

In the movie Quo Vadis, General Marcus Vinicius rides in triumph through the streets of Rome accepting the accolades and praise of the masses of Roman. Behind him is a slave who holds a crown of olive leaves above his head and repeats the words, “Remember, thou art only a man.” If Michael Jackson has close to him to remind him of that, maybe he would still be with us and making music.

Vacation Church

We have been in Arkansas since Friday and having a good visit with Mom and Dad. The trip was originally supposed to be to escort Angelynn back to Harding, but she got a job offer the day before we were to leave. So there is the answer to the joblessness across the country because of this recession-- just plan a trip to Arkansas. I'm not sure what the unemployed in Arkansas are supposed to do.

We enjoyed going to church with Mom and Dad Sunday. I usually preach 50 or so weeks out of the year, so getting a Sunday off was a real treat. We went to early service, so that meant getting to church by 8:15 a.m. That sounds early, but that is about 2-3 hours later than usual, so I felt like I was skipping church sleeping in so late. Beside the late hour of revival, there was several other differences going to church when I don't preach--

• I feel no frustration when the PowerPoint guys gets out of sync.
• I feel no responsibility when the songs don't fit the worship theme just right.
• I feel no pressure for the service not to last to long or too short
• I had to try not to fall into the "critic mode" that annoys me when I'm in charge. (I could so easily become Simon Crowl, and I really don't want anyone to do that).

In short, it's good occasionally to be able to relax and just let church happen and not feel like I have to make it happen. What I need to learn how to do is to relax and just let church happen when I am doing the planning and presenting. After all, I'm never really the One in charge.

Veggie Tales

Police were called to a church in Florida when two women got into a knock-down, drag-out fight with cucumbers. It seems that the church was giving away free veggies when the two ladies got into a disagreement over which veggie stash belonged to which lady. Soon the two women were pummeling each other with cucumbers, and the police had to be called to break up the fight. It is a blessing the church wasn’t giving away free watermelons!

OK, a fight at church over cucumbers sounds pretty silly. But then, having a fight at church over anything is pretty silly. Or really, it is a "shame" or a "humiliation." That is the world Paul uses to dress down the church at Corinth who were taking each other to court over property issues (1 Cor. 6:1-6). These believers were so interested in getting their way that they didn’t even think how their fights would impact the pagan world around them. In all of our fights over theological issues and church practices (fights that that outsiders could not possibly understand), did anyone possibly ponder how all this plays in Peoria. How can we be ambassadors for the Prince of Peace
when we can't get along with one another?

That church in Florida will forever be known as the place where the two ladies went at it with cucumbers. I wonder how many of our churches have forever compromised their witness because of fights, fusses and feuds that in the final analysis are just as silly as mixing it up over veggies.

A Community of the Cross

I got up this morning, kissed my sleeping wife and went off to work. It kinda felt like I was in an old Father Knows Best rerun. Usually she is up and moving around way before me. But today was the first day that school was out and teachers did not have to report for duty. One of the perks you get as a schoolteacher is getting the summer off; the other perk is a paycheck. So Lynn is now a woman of leisure… for the week or two that we don’t have something already planned.

My sermon Sunday is on the church as a community of the cross. I ran across a couple of quotations that I didn’t use in the sermon. Being a true conservative at heart, and thought I would conserve typing and use them here--

“Christianity has taken a giant stride into the absurd. Remove from Christianity its ability to shock and it is altogether destroyed. It then becomes a tiny superficial thing, capable neither of inflicting deep wounds nor of healing them. It's when the absurd starts to sound reasonable that we should begin to worry.” (Søren Kierkegaard)

“In terms of human wisdom, Jesus was a perfect fool. And if you think you can follow him without making something like the same kind of fool of yourself, you are laboring not under the cross, but a delusion.” (Frederick Buechner)

If Christians really believe that we are a community of the cross saved by God's grace to love and serve Him and others, then why do we spend so much time acting like it is what we have figured out or have accomplished that really makes the real difference in being the true church. Paul says focusing on human wisdom and strength robs the cross of its power (1 Cor 1:17). When we what we do (say like the format of our church music) a requirement for salvation, then we have robbed the cross of its power.

If we really would cling to the cross for dear life, we would not risk taking a hand away to point a finger at someone else.

You Can't Please Everyone

File this one under, “You can’t please everyone.” President Obama was being interviewed by CNBC when a pesky fly started buzzing around him. He swatted at it a couple of times, but it persisted on interrupting the interview. Finally, the President reached up and smacked it dead. It was a Kung Fu moment (“When you can take the pebble from hand, Grasshopper…”). I think it was rather impressive-- I just hope Iran and North Korea were paying attention.

Well, faster than you can say “animal activist,” there was a statement from PETA decrying the president’s obvious lack of sensitivity. Among other things, PETA said, "We support compassion even for the most curious, smallest and least sympathetic animals. We believe that people, where they can be compassionate, should be, for all animals." They also sent the president a “Katcha Bug Humane Bug Catcher” that allows one to trap a house fly and then release it outside. So we’re supposed to practice catch-and-release on flies. Shooting Alaskan wolves from helicopters is inhumane. The kid torturing cats in Florida is inhumane. But swatting flies?

You can’t please all the people all the time. And you can’t please some of the people any of the time. It seems that every time we do anything at church, there is someone who is not pleased. When we do something just a little bit differently, some people aren’t pleased. But go awhile doing things exactly the same, and other people aren’t pleased. The line from the old Ricky Nelson song “Garden Party” comes to mind, “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself!”

I understand the sentiment. Get enough complaint and criticism, and you just want sing right along, “You can’t please everyone…” God wants us to sing a different tune. No everyone is at the same place in the walk with God. No everyone understands everything the same. There are people Paul calls “the weak” who need to be taught, but in the meantime need to be pleased. Paul says this in Romans 15:1-3

We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. Each of us should please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. For even Christ did not please himself but, as it is written: “The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.”

No, we can’t please everyone. But that doesn’t mean we give up trying and just please ourselves. That’s not what God did, and that’s not what God wants us to do. Sometimes we have to bear with the weak. Now, the word for weak is the word incapable or powerless; it is often used to mean impossible—see Matt 19:21, Mark 10:27, Heb 6:4). So when Paul talks about the weak, he is talking about those who are incapable of understanding, those of whom more mature response is impossible. He’s not talking about someone who knows better but refuses to act better. And even cantankerous critics need a break every once in awhile.

Nope, we can’t please everyone. But we don’t therefore just please ourselves; we seek to please God.

The Most Sepcial Day of the Year

Oh, boy, it’s almost Father’s Day. It’s the most important and special holiday of the year… NOT! A recent article by Geoff Williams in Parenting suggests that “Father's Day is an afterthought, a holiday just a few steps above the one that celebrates the groundhog and that other one that promotes trees.” He compares the gift he gave his wife for Mother’s Day (the ornamental weeping cherry tree she always wanted planted in the yard beside a fancy new bird bath) with the gift she got him (some boxer shorts and a tiny reading lamp so he can read in bed without disturbing her). There does seem to be some inequity there, doesn’t it? This reminded me of a routine Bill Cosby did years ago—

On Mother’s Day you break your back working to buy some presents… On Father’s Day you say, “Dad give me some money, I want to buy you a pack of cigarettes.” Then you smoke half the pack coming home… and it’s not even his brand.

Why the difference? Cosby suggested that it is because mothers are so much easier to give gifts to. You can paint a old rock and give it to Mom and she’ll say, “Isn't that so precious; that’s the sweetest thing…” Dad will say, “Get that old rock out of the house!” He may be onto something. Mom is still easier to buy for, largely because Lynn buys her gifts!

But I have an idea the difference in importance between Mother’s Day and Father’s Day has more to do with the importance in the closeness of the relationships. Many fathers remain emotionally distant from their children; many father are just plain distant… as in not there at all. So maybe Mother’s Day is more important because mothers are more important.

Well I never borrowed money from Dad to buy him a pack of cigarettes for Father’s Day. That’s because he gave up smoking when his kids were born because he didn’t think it would be good for them to be around the smoke (that was way, way before anyone knew anything about secondhand smoke). That was only the first of a jillion sacrifices that Dad made and still makes to make sure that my sister and I have had what we needed (and usually what we wanted). If all Dads were more like my Dad, Father’s Day would be a much bigger deal as a holiday!

Catch-and-Release

Ron Hall and Denver Moore teach us something about real friendship in the book Same Kind of Different as Me. This is the true story of the improbable friendship of a rich Texas art dealer and a poor Louisiana sharecropper. Hall and his wife Dorothy began volunteering each week at a homeless shelter, and Dorothy became convinced that God wanted them to befriend Denver. Ron made halting overtures, but Denver wouldn’t even speak to them. Finally he asked Ron, "What do you want from me?" Ron replied, "I just want to be your friend." Denver promised to think about it. And he did.

He later said to Ron, "There is somethin I heard ‘bout white folks and bothers me, and it has to do with fishin." Ron wasn’t much of a fisherman, but he promised to try to answer the question. He said, 'I heard that when white folks go fishin they do somthin called 'catch and release.'' He didn’t understand that. When "colored folks" caught a fish, they would show it off to everybody and then they’d eat it. He just couldn’t understand why anyone would catch-and-release. Then it became clear that Denver wasn’t talking’ about fishin at all—

So, Mr. Ron, it occurred to me. If you is fishin for friend you just gon’ catch and release, then I ain’t got no desire to be your friend… But if you is lookin for a real friend, then I’ll be one. Forever.

Maybe that is what is wrong with our friendships and relationships today—we’re just too good at catch and release. We eschew the brother-and-sister, family-ties fellowship that is talked about in the New Testament for the catch-and-release friendships of which Denver was suspicious. Relationships among believers in the body of Christ are relationships that are forged in blood and bathed in baptism. They are not meant to be catch-and-release.

Is God Enough?

This comes from YouTube via Bobby Valentine through Alan Smith. But you need to watch this. Do we really believe that God is enough?



This is from a sermon by John Piper, and I believe he nails it pretty well. It is easy to sit in our air-conditioned auditorium singing "Blessed Be Your Name" with our praise team and PowerPoint while everything around us seems to be going well. But what about when things aren't going so well. The point of that song and the point of our faith is that God is God during the good times and the bad. We don't serve God so that he will bless us with great cars great jobs, great home, and great families. We serve God because God is God, and God is enough. He may bless us with jobs and homes and cars and families. Or he may bless us with suffering and struggle and hardship. But God is God despite what happens in our and in what happens in our lives. God is enough.

The Old Disappearing Hitchhiker Trick

Patrick Mead has a story on his blog that relates to our study of "Angels and Demons" on Wednesday nights. An abbreviated version goes like this—

A woman is driving down the highway and sees someone on the side of the road. She has the strong feeling God wants her to pick him up, and she does. She and her rider get into a spiritual conversation, and he finally tells her that God sent him to tell people that the Lord is getting ready to come back. The woman didn’t realize that she was speeding until a cop pulled her. She apologized, telling the cop that she wasn’t paying attention because she was talking to the man, but her rider was gone. She started to insist that there was a man riding with her, but the cop stopped her and said, “You are the 16th person I have pulled over with the exact same story.”

Could God have sent an angel in this way to announce that He is coming back? Well, angels have already announced that, right? (See Acts 1:11). This particular story is a pretty common urban legend that dates back into the 40’s (see Snopes.com for more details). Actually, it is a good idea to check out any story you get in an email at Snopes.com to see if it is a documented urban legend. Let me quote part of what Patrick says in response--

It is WAY to easy to get into a one-up battle with people when it comes to healing stories, stories of miracles, numbers of baptisms, success of missions, etc. I repeat — God doesn’t need the help and it makes outsiders laugh at us. I was in a discussion once where a pastor insisted that he defeated a demon and cast him out of a parishioner while the doctor (who actually treated the person) said that medicine brought the man around to his senses. Minirith and Meier (Christian psychiatrists who run a well known clinic) are famous for saying that demons seem to be allergic to Thorazine; their way of saying that many things pastors say are caused by demons are really caused by biology and can be treated by pharmacology).

I believe in demons, angels, healings, and miracles. I also believe that the curtain between our reality and Reality in the spiritual realm usually stays closed. Consider this as an example: I don’t think Daniel saw God every day even though he prayed to Him three times a day for over 70 years. We have records indicating that God showed up in Daniel’s life — pulled that curtain aside — a handful of times. Stephen, the great martyr, saw the curtain pulled back at the point of his death. Forgive me, but I am suspicious when I hear people speak as if God not only twitches the curtain far more often in their lives than He ever did for Daniel or Paul or Stephen, but has pulled it down and snuggled next to them on the couch.

C.S. Lewis in his book Miracles suggests that a world in which miracles happened regularly would be a world of chaos and magic. God doesn’t send angels to everyone or work miracles in everyone. That didn’t happen in the lives of Bible characters, and we shouldn’t expect it to happen today. On the other hand, God just may be a bit annoyed when we start talking about the things that He can no longer do today. As far as I’m concerned, God can do anything He decides to do. I’m sure He is relieved that I have given Him my permission!

What Are Your Giant Hidden Cherubs?

We’ve been studying angels and demons on Wednesday nights. Actually, I title the series “Angels and Demons” to coincide with the new Tom Hanks movie in the theaters now. Cute, huh? The title PowerPoint slide each week is a graphic from the movie poster. Such shamelessness keeps me from having to have original thoughts.

One of the points that has come out of this study for me is that angels are all over the place in the Bible. I never thought about that. Angels don’t just show up with an occasional message for the prophets, announce the birth of Christ to the angels and then rest up for the grand finale in Revelation—they are all over the place in the Bible. Makes you wonder whether or not they are still all over the place.

My reading for this morning from 1 Kings 6 mentions angels. Well, these are really cherubs. Actually they aren’t real cherubs but the huge representation of cherubs that Solomon placed in the most holy place in the temple. He had this huge pair of cherubs carved out of olive wood. They were 15 feet tall, and their wings spanned the entire room, touching the wall on one side and the other cherub’s wing on the other. And the entire cherub carved from olive wood was overlaid with gold. Solomon made these giant golden cherubs with wall-to-wall golden wings… to be placed in a room where they would be seen by only one man only one time each year! These cherubs must have been astonishingly impressive, but no one ever saw them except the high priest... and God! Solomon would have likely said that this was the point—God would see them and thus it had to be perfect.

There are parts of our lives that we rarely (or never) let other people see. There are parts of ourselves that we keep buried deep within us— our failures and our fears, our dreams and our nightmares, our hopes for the futures, our doubts in the present and our pains from the past. Maybe we share parts of these with a few people, but we work very hard to hide them from most. Maybe we hide them from ourselves. If we make enough noise with our frantic, frenetic lifestyles, there is never that quiet time where self-examination takes place

We need to know that God knows. The same God who gazed upon Solomon’s cherubs hidden away from almost everyone else also sees the darkest and most secret parts of us that we keep hidden. After all, we are his temple and He reigns over every part of us. Nothing is secret from Him.

O LORD, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD. (Psalm 139:1-4)

At the Movies

Lynn and I have been talking about going to the movies. We haven’t actually gone, but are talking about it. Actually, it's more like negotiation, We don't like the same movies. I like action-adventure and sci-fi; she likes romantic comedies. We both liked Titanic and Pear Harbor— romance while stuff blew up! I think the last movie we saw in a theater that we both liked was The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. But we haven't been in awhile, and so we need to go to the movies (someone gave us an AMC movie card last Christmas and we still haven't used it).

We did agree on last year’s sleeper hit Slumdog Millionaire. We both hated it. OK, maybe not “hated it.” Actually, we liked the ending and the music-video-credits at the end, but there was an awful lot of dreary before you get there! That is what makes me nervous about the next movie Lynn wants us to see, Up. Why am I nervous? Because of things like I read in Greg Boyd’s blog today—

For my 52nd birthday I went to the animated movie Up with Shelley and a couple of friends. What a marvelous birthday present!! People, you HAVE to see this show (and in the theaters, not on DVD, and in 3-D, not 2-D…the 3-D effects were incredible!) Second only to Slumdog Millionaire, this show was the most amazing thing produced in the last year.

See? The same people that liked Slumdog are pushing Up. Fool me once, shame on me… Lynn talked me into seeing Slumbog because "somebody" told her it was really good. Now we are supposed to see Up because "somebody" told her it was really good. We only go to the movies a couple times a year, so I’d like for this one to be good (I still haven’t seen Star Trek or Angels and Demons for cryin' out loud). So what am I going to do? Somebody help me out here.

Wait a minute. It was "somebody" who told us to go to the last one!

Wallowing with the Heathen?

Last night I dreamed that I was outside in a fierce storm with the wind blowing in my face. Then I woke up to discover that I had pulled the mask of my new CPAP machine halfway off and it was blowing air in my face! I don’t know about this machine; I felt like I was being smothered. It is a lot easier to inhale than to exhale, so I feel like I’m constantly hyperventilating. I guess smothering on the mask or getting strangled on the hose is better than getting axe murdered in my sleep… which Lynn informed might happen if I didn’t get the snoring thing fixed.

Yesterday, I mentioned in the blog something about deacons smoking outside on the porch after church. Cathy told me this morning that they used to do the same thing at her church as well. I remember that also happening at my grandmother’s church. And this was during the time when preacher’s routinely preached against smoking as a worldly thing that Christians shouldn’t do. Is that a bit strange?

I also remember hearing sermons against “mixed bathing” (swimming with members of the opposite sex) on Sunday and then seeing my church friends at the pool on Monday. Camp still has strict rules against mixed swimming although all of the kids go to the pool and the beach all the time. One local preacher used to preach a sermon each spring on the evils of going to the beach (someone once told me that the title of his sermon was “Wallowing with the Heathen”). The sermon is routine… and routinely ignored!

My point here isn’t that we need to get back to the good old days when we didn’t wallow with the heathen. The point is that we didn’t follow the command not to wallow even when it was routinely being preached. It seems to me that we were training ourselves and our young people not to really take what the church preached too seriously. I mean, we heard that smoking and going to the pool was wrong and then saw Christians smoking and going to the pool. (Not at the same time; the pool had strict rules against smoking). So what was the point of all that?

I wonder what ways that our church today is going out of its way to be irrelevant?

Summertime Sunday Nights

Today is June 2, which makes Sunday June 7. So Sunday is a very important date on our church calendar— it's the first Sunday after the end of small group season. Instead of meeting in various small groups in different homes (some of which are not Sunday night), we will all meeting together at the church building at 6:00 p.m. for Sunday night services. We do different things on Summertime Sunday Nights--

• Old Fashion Sing-Song Night. Here every man (sorry Kati) in the church gets the chance to lead a song or two.
  
  
• Pepperdine Bible Lectures Night. The church watches a DVD of Jeff Walling or Mike Cope or Don McLaughlin preach and see what its like to hear good preaching.
  
  
• Praise Night. The praise team leads us a fast-paced, up-tempo worship and then I preach an inspiring lesson. In other words, we redo Sunday morning.
  
  
• Ministry Night. We break up into teams that sing at the nursing home, make visits, address cards, or spend time in focused prayer. We’ll do one of these right before Upward and VBS to get last minute details ready.
  
  
• Retro-Night. Here we have a throwback service where we do things just like we used to-- two songs, a prayer, a song, a sermon, a song, a closing prayer and then the deacons go out to smoke on the porch (just kidding).
  
  
• Unity Night: We’re hoping to have some joint services with other churches in the area. That is still in the works.

We have all of these things scheduled, or at least tentatively planned. What we don't really know is WHY! Why have a service on Sunday night at all? What is the purpose? We still have people who come every time the door are open; you don’t really have to do much for them except open the doors. We have parents with small children who won't t likely come unless we do something for the children, but most of the people who come on Sunday night work with the children every other service. The only guests we generally have on Sunday evening are people traveling from out of town (not people from our community).

So what exactly is the purpose of having a second service on Sunday night? Before we learned that we are saved by grace and not works, Sunday night attendance was how you separated the faithful from the unfaithful church members. OK, that is not the purpose any more, but it does seem like we ought have a purpose. Right now, the purpose of our Sunday night service is to have something on Sunday night. Measuring success is quite easy here—if we have something Sunday night, then we've succeeded! It seems like we can do better.

Language and Gospel

I try hard very hard to be socially, ethnically and racially sensitive. One of the worst insults anyone could throw at me is to call me a racist. (Well, that and calling me a Cowboys fan). I’m all for truth and justice, but I know that the American way is only one way among many ways. I don’t expect the whole world to speak English. I BOTH regret that so many American jobs have been outsourced overseas AND I admire and respect people in other countries who work so hard and so long to better their lives and the opportunities for their children.

All of that aside... ARGH! I just spent an hour and a half on the phone with tech support at Xerox trying to get our copier/printer/scanner printing and scanning. All the network settings somehow got completely scrambled (I brought up the web interface for the printer, I got our web cam! Fun!) A network printer/scanner that has no network settings is neither a printer nor a scanner. So I called Xerox. The young woman I talked to was eager to be of assistance. Every time I called, she asked, “How may I be of assistance?” (At least, I think that’s what she said.) The problem was that she didn’t have the English skills to communicate clearly enough to walk me through the technical issue. Hey, I don’t speak Hindi or Bengali or Telugu, and I’m not trying to be the ugly American. But when communicating technical information to Americans is your job, you really need to be able to speak English. Or is it just me?

I eventually just let her think that she had solved the problem and then spent 10 minutes on Google and figured it out myself. After setting up a new IP for on the printer then changing the IP in the printer driver on the computers, I had to give it a 139 port number for the scanner driver. I don’t now why, but it seems to work; the copier is now a scanner and printer again. Roger is on his own changing his printer driver—I don’t do Vista. Vista is a foreign language.

When you want to communicate important information, it is up to you to make sure you are speaking the right language. I wonder if that is our problem when communicating the gospel to a world that is totally foreign. We tend to make arguments and stress issues that made little sense a generation ago and that now totally garble the basic message of the gospel. To be honest, postmodern people have little interest in arguments period; they want to see something working. So maybe the more we argue, the less it looks like the gospel is working. I’m not suggesting that we back away from truth; our story (metanarrative in postmodern parlance) is still the greatest story every told. But when we equate this story to our silly-isms and arguments from command-example-inference, we confuse people with what amounts to a foreign language. The world is asking today (even when they don’t know that it’s what they’re asking), “We would like to see Jesus” (Jn 12:21). We need to make sure we use the right words; we need to point to the Word.

Church Problems

A sad but true fact—all of us know of too many stories of churches that became so embroiled in conflict and disagreement that things happened that would be downright silly if they were not true—

• In one church, a leadership disagreement got so heated that a deacon’s wife whacked one of the elders with her purse! I’m not sure, but I think elder-whacking is wrong for most people. I hope I’m not giving anyone any ideas.
  
  
• After one church spent a long time in prayer and preparation, one congregation decided to begin using a praise team in worship. Not everyone was happy with the elder’s decision (if you can imagine that). On the first Sunday for the praise team to lead worship, someone went through and cut every mike cord with a pair of scissors. I hope I’m not giving anyone any ideas.
  
  
• An elder of a storefront startup church in our area became so angry after a meeting that he stormed out, and returned a short time later with a gun. He shot the preacher dead and then burned down the building. Boy, I really hope I’m not giving anyone any ideas!

We sometimes talk about restoring the NT church. We may have done a better job of that than we realize— every church we know about in the New Testament had unity problems! In fact, the reason that we know about churches like Corinth and Galatians is because they had these problems. Paul wrote his letters to help these churches solve their problems. So if there were any “problemless” churches in the first century, we wouldn’t know about them!

I heard one preacher suggest that Philippi was a church that had no real church problems. What book was he reading? Sure, Paul talks about joy a lot in Philippians, but he never really accuses them of having any! Three of the four things Paul tells the church to do in Philippians 2:2 are about having the same mind. Why? They weren’t of one mind. Hey Paul tells Syzygus, the loyal yokefellow, to step between two warring sisters and help settle them down. What are the chances that ol' Syzygus got whacked with a purse?

Philippi had the same church problem that my church has—it was full of people that want to have their own way. I look back at some of the rough spots that we have had here, and I have to admit that I was not always on the side of the angels. Sometimes I wanted my own way too much. After all, I was more consistent in my exegesis and smarter, obviously, because I knew how to say “exegesis.” What I wasn’t smart enough to see is that God was giving me a chance to do the Christ thing and lay down myself as a sacrifice. If I would have done that, I would have been walked on. But I might have also given the Spirit the space to do His holy work on the hearts of others.

I’m beginning to understand that the church will not have unity until we desire it more than we want to be right and have our own way. How do we do that? Paul gets us a long way down the road in what he says in Philippians 2:3-11 (NLT)

3 Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. 4 Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too. 5 You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.
6 Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to.
7 Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave
and was born as a human being.
When he appeared in human form,8 he humbled himself in obedience to God
and died a criminal’s death on a cross.
9 Therefore, God elevated him to the place of highest honor and gave him the name above all other names,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,to the glory of God the Father.

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

I spent Sunday night alone in the Sleep Clinic. Lynn finally laid down the law in her gentle but firm way-- either I spend one night without her letting them figure out what can be done about my snoring OR I spend the rest of my nights without her. I chose the one night. As it turns out, I do snore... which surprised no one in our house (or on our block). But I also have sleep apnea, which did surprise us at bit. This is good news. Insurance companies consider loud snoring to be a merely social problem which they don’t cover at all. The surgeries or dental appliances needed to stop problem snoring are not covered, though broken ribs received from flying elbows because of chronic snoring are covered. But insurance companies do consider sleep apnea to be a medical problem, and they will evidently pay for all kinds of high tech machines. I am waiting for mine.

I never really thought I was eithger tired in the morning or sleepy in the afternoons, usually symptons of the condition. Sleep apnea wakes you up continually throughout the night so that you can get a breathe. You never get awake enough to remember waking, but you are not ever asleep enough to get the restorative sleep you need. Well, I never thought I was that tired during. In fact, I checked "no" several times on the questionnaires they give you prior to your sleep clinic stay. I don't get sleepy during the day.

But ever since they told me I have sleep apnea, I am seem to be tired all the time. It's the power of suggestion, I guessssssssssss. Sorry, must have dozed off. Paul said that he had “often gone without sleep” (2 Cor 11:27). Apparently, I have been following Paul’s example and haven’t even know it!

Live Forgiven

You have probably seen the video of a church doing the “Cardboard Testimonies.” Someone somewhere had a great idea, and great ideas usually get copied. And this was a great idea... and a simple one. People share how God has changed their lives by writing what they were (alcoholic, materialistic, selfish, etc) on one side of the cardboard and then flipping the card to reveal what they have become by the grace of God (sober, spiritual, giving, etc.). It is a powerful testimony to power of God change us.

Satan desperately wants us to doubt that God can transform us like this. He tries to create that doubt in one of three ways.

• First, he wants us to doubt we ARE forgiven. If we begin to doubt that God’s has forgiven us, then we begin to doubt God and we refuse to live like forgiven people. After all, if we spend all our energy wondering if we are forgiving and suspecting that we are not, we don't have time to actually live how God wants us to live.
  
  
• Second, Satan wants you doubt that God can forgive you. Sure God can forgive regular people of regular sins. God can forgive the guy I heard one time confess that he was addicted to buying too many neckties. (Too me, that is a big sin). God can forgive that, but he can’t forgive me because of what I have done. Satan wants us to think that it is hopeless to believe we can ever do any better than you are doing right now. You might as well give up.
  
  
• Third, failing those two, Satan wants us to think that forgiveness is easy, simple and no big deal. If forgiveness is as easy as falling off log, then it really isn’t that important, is it?

Notice what Paul says in 1 Timothy 1:15-17 and how he helps us to avoid all three of these traps. Paul certainly understand how bad sin is and this how complicated is our forgiveness. He accepts God’s grace and His power to change, and thus he is focused
on the majesty and glory of God. We must see BOTH our continual neediness and God’s eternal power. We need to be forgiven and God has the power to forgive. And once we are forgiven, then we can live forgiven.

Just Dining-Room Talk?

I ran across a story yesterday that I think illustrates the struggle of many Christians today. Ten years ago, a University of Notre Dame senior named Lacy Dodd found herself in a situation that she would never have imagined. Only weeks away from her graduation, she found herself pregnant. The nurse at the clinic confirmed the pregnancy and then told her not to worry because she had “other options.” That is not the message she wanted to hear.

Dodd’s boyfriend also tried to pressure her into getting an abortion. When she pointed to the teaching of her church and responsibility of her faith, he said, “All that talk about abortion is just dining-room talk.” All the pious and moralistic talk was fine for banter around the dining table, but in real life you have do what is best for yourself. Fortunately, Ms. Dodd did not listen to such reason, and today she is the single mother of a ten-year old daughter named Mary.

Why is it that Christians are overwhelmingly opposed to divorce but continue to get divorced at a rate higher than the national average? Why are Evangelical Christians almost 100% against abortion while 18% of Evangelical women had abortions (Barna Research)? Why have the social mores and moral choices of our culture become in large part the social mores and moral choices of Christians as well? Do we see the Bible’s call to a personal holiness that reflects the holiness of God in an unholy world “just dining-room talk?” Or maybe “just Sunday School talk?”

The story I read was reporting on an essay written by Lacy Dodd (the mother in the story above) entitled “Notre Dame, My Mother” timed to be released at Mother’s Day to coincide with President Obama’s visit to Notre Dame. President Obama, of course, has long been an opponent of any restrictions on abortion rights. Some, including Ms. Dodd, wonder at the mixed-message sent by the President speaking at commencement and receiving an honorary degree from a Catholic university opposed to the practice of abortion. Dodd ends her essay--

“Who draws support from your decision to honor President Obama — the young, pregnant Notre Dame woman sitting in that graduating class who wants desperately to keep her baby, or the Notre Dame man who believes that the Catholic teaching on the intrinsic evil of abortion is just dining-room talk?”

Good question. The more Christians look like the world around us in the moral decisions we make, the less of a message we will have for the world. If Christianity really is “just dining-room talk,” then maybe we just need to shut up.

The Man in Black

One of the highlights of the Pepperdine Lectures each year is getting to hear Dr. Randy Harris, a professor at Abilene University. Randy is a bit hard to explain. He is single, usually dresses all in black, and is the foremost theologian in our movement. And he is one of the funniest guys you’ll ever hear. His new book is entitled God Work: Confessions of a Stand-up Theologian. And Harris knows how to combine the two (humor and scholarship) in a way I’ve never heard before. You are laughing all the way through his presentation, and then realize you have learned some things that are important. It is not often that the smartest guy in the room is also the funniest, but that is the case in most rooms that Harris occupies.

To give you an idea of how Harris teaches, notice few quotes from his new book. OK, my copy is on order (we were so focused on not giving AirTran another $25 for a second bag that we were packed tight in one suitcase and didn’t have room to buy books; I had to make space to bring back the Hallal and Zoe CD’s we bought), so I borrowed these excerpts come from Mike Cope’s blog--

• “My friend Augustine died in 430 (most of my friends have been dead for several hundred years; I’ve found that makes the friendship much easier).”
  
  
• “Here’s the theme of the book of Revelation: God’s team wins. Pick a team. Don’t be stupid.”
  
  
• “My friends refer to me as the Dead Sea of e-mail. I receive and I receive but I do not give.”
  
  
• “I’m not a Calvinist. I do not think that everything happens in the world directly because God has caused it or desired it. I’m tempted to suggest that that makes God a monster. Nor am I a deist. I’m not one of those who think God wound up the world and hasn’t done much of anything since the closing of the last book of the Bible. What I am instead is a panentheist, which is one who believes that in all things God is working — in death as well as life, in sickness as well as health, in disaster as well as rescue.”
  
  
• “Loyalty to country, loyalty to family, loyalty to friends — all of those strike me as commendable things. The problem is when patriotism becomes nationalism. Now this is a different matter. Nationalism is always evil because it is idolatry. It is the point where we confuse the nation with God, where our primary loyalties become aimed at the nation instead of God. This is always bad news. And nationalism is often lurking just under the surface of much of what we do.”

Harris’ class this year was entitled “My Favorite Atheists: Conversing with the Enemy” and he did three presentations on what we can learn from Feuerbach, Sartre and Nietzche. It was very interesting. I remember reading these guys (when forced to in school) and I don’t remember it being particularly interesting. Perhaps I didn't read closely enough... but I passed the quiz.

Pepperdine Bible Lectures

Well, another Pepperdine Bible Lectures has come and gone. We got home Saturday night at 11:15; that always makes getting up and preaching on Sunday an exhausting experience… for both me and the church! This marked the 20th year Lynn and I spent the week in Malibu. What an incredible blessing it is for us each year; we appreciate our elders and church making this possible. It's always better when Denbigh folks go with us (this year it was Randy and Betty Tanner and Mike and Joann Guthrie). Why don't we all go next year? We'll just move services that Sunday to Malibu. What do you say?

What the best part of the Pepperdine Lectures? This year, the main theme lectures were some of the best we have heard—Monte Cox, Rick Atchley, Josh Ross and Mike Cope were particularly good. The theme was Colossians… which I taught here 6 months ago. I wonder if anyone would notice if I preached a series on Colossians… I may give that a try. The worship times were great, especially Songfest at 6:15 (led by Hallal, Zoe and Lighthouse). We actually got there by 5:15 each night to make sure we got a seat on the front row! That happens at church all the time!

If I were completely honest, I would have to admit that the worship times were not as desperately special as they were in years gone by. Our praise team now leads those same songs in that same way every Sunday… better in some cases! But we did bring back a list of songs we want to try... like an a cappella version of "Praise You in the Dance."

This year was a throwback for me in a lot of ways. Thursday night Late Night in Smothers with Hallal recaptured the good old days when I sprinted from Firestone to Smothers to make sure we got a seat. And listening to Rubel Shelly lecture on atheism (his topic was “Why Are Atheists So Angry?”) took me back to Freed-Hardeman days (where it cost Dad a lot of money for me to hear similar material). Spending time with people like Alan and Sueanne Smith, Bob and Lourene Clark, Eddie and Carol Hendrix, Carl Etchison, and many, many more also really took us back as well. When did all those people get so old?

This was a special, special week. We are already looking forward to next year. Seriously, let’s all go next year. Plane ticket-- $200 (AirTran). Room and Board-- $125 (on-campus). Spiritual experience-- priceless!

Day of the Lord

Talk about having your basic “bad day.” Ashley Swendsen was enjoying a nature stroll on a hiking trail in Colorado Springs. The trail is posted with warnings about possible flash floods, but was no warning about what to do if you meet a bear. That is exactly what happened, and she did exactly what you aren't supposed to do-- she RAN. The bear actually chased her for about 20 seconds and got as close as a couple of feet until Swendsen made it out to a street… where she was promptly hit by a passing car! Yep, she outran a bear but she couldn’t outrun a Chevy. Thankfully, the car wasn’t going too fast, but she was bounced over the hood. The bear ran off one way and the car drove off another. Swendsen survived her adventure; BTW, she is also 6 months pregnant. She says that their child’s middle name will be “Bear.” Officials hunted down the bear and killed it; they are currently hunting down the hit-and-run driver.

When I read that story, I couldn’t help but think of Amos 5:18-19. Amos is warning those Israelites who were looking forward to the coming Day of the Lord. In the OT, the Day of the Lord was that time in time when God would judge a nation and bring it down. Israel thought that meant its enemies would be destroyed, so many Israelites looked forward to that time. Amos warned them that when God came in judgment, it would be to judge them—

18 Woe to you who long for the day of the LORD!
Why do you long for the day of the LORD?
That day will be darkness, not light.
19 It will be as though a man fled from a lion only to meet a bear,
as though he entered his house and rested his hand on the wall
only to have a snake bite him.

There was to be no escape from God’s judgment. It would be like you were running from a lion only to run smack dab into a bear. And then somehow you escape from the bear only to rest your hand on the wall in your house (whew!) and be bitten by a snake. When God comes for you, there is no escape. And when God judges, He judges us all.

Statues and Restoration

On Monument Avenue in Richmond, there are dozens of statues of confederate war heroes on their horses. (The old idea whether the horse and one or both legs raised depends on whether the hero was wounded or killed in battle is a myth). These statues are uncannily realistic, from the snarl on the horse’s face and the fire in its eyes to the muscles that ripple under its skin. Every detail of the battle gear and uniform of the honored soldier is faithfully reproduced. In fact, sometimes there is only one difference between the statue and the real thing. The statue is not alive! No matter how perfect the form and faithful the likeness, a stone horse is just not the same as a living one.

My religious tribe talks a lot about restoration. We came from a back to the Bible frontier movement variously known as “The Restoration Movement” or “The Stone-Campbell Movement.” Believers were prevented from worshiping together because of their various denominational creeds and traditions. A "closed communion" in which one had to prove that he or she was a member in good standing of a particular church before being allowed to the Lord's table is one way this division was seen. The genius of Restoration was the desire to set aside human creeds and traditions to focus only on scripture so that the barriers to unity would cease to function. Paul seemed to think that Jesus was interested in tearing down walls of separation (Eph 2:14). If we could just go back and just be Christians only, the divisions caused by human traditions would cease to have hold.

So we set about “the Restoration of the Ancient Order.” We wanted to recreate the New Testament church that existed in the book of Acts. The organization, doctrine and worship of the church were fully restored, and thus we became “The New Testament church.” Or simply "the church." By that time, we weren't really all that interested in creating unity among all believers but showing that we were the right church and everyone else... well, was the wrong church. We still talked a lot about the "Restoration Movement," but we pretty much had stopped moving anywhere. Restoration had been completed.

Even if you grant that we "restored" the essential organization, worship and doctrinal details of the first century church, that is not the same as restoring the church. The church as it was called to be in the first century was saturated in the unity of the Spirit, the love of Christ and the peace of God. The kingdom of God was about "righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit" (Rom 14:17). That's not form; that's fire. The church was not about what humans did but about what God had done and was continuing to do. To “restore” a church based on only forms and formats, doctrines and dogmas is to build a statue of a horse that has no life in it, no fire. What makes a church the church is the life that comes from the God we worship, the Savior we serve and the Spirit who fills us both corporately and individually.

Without the fire of the first century church, there is no restoration.