Tribute

I played one year of organized football when I was in the 7th or 8th grade. I was small. In the first practice I got run over by the running back who was a good six or eight inches taller than me. I did tackle him, it’s just that I ended up at the bottom of the pile. I didn’t even have a mouthpiece yet and the coach came over to me, laughing, and said, “Son, let’s not do that again until we get you a mouthpiece. We don’t want you losing any of your teeth or biting your tongue off.”

Though I didn’t play much - if you hadn’t played before you got to spend the first year sitting on the bench; it was just an unwritten rule - we never lost a game. I think we only got scored on once. But I was proud to be a part of that team.

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Picture This

This is Sadie, one of my boxers. Boxers are great dogs. Very intelligent and friendly. Don’t settle for some little ankle biter. Get yourself a real dog like one of these.

Why Do They Believe?

A recent post by Ernest Goodman really got me to thinking. While Ernest lives in Western Europe where missions work is difficult, there are other places in the world where missions work is not so difficult. I had a friend who would go at least twice a year to an Asian country on mission trips and would return every time announcing that thousands (no exaggeration) had come to faith in Christ. Every time. Thousands.

I want to believe that. I really, really do. I’m not doubting that thousands responded in some way to a visiting American’s presentation of the gospel. I’m just wondering what they were responding to.

Missions groups travel overseas taking doctors and nurses with them to provide free medical and dental care. Others go digging wells or building schools. I have no doubt that when the time comes to get a group of people together so that someone can preach the gospel to them that the speaker presents a clear message of repentance and faith in Jesus for the forgiveness of sins and new life.

Now, I don’t want to sound skeptical toward the work of the Spirit. That’s the last thing I want to do, or to convey here. I just hear these same sort of stories over and over and over again. And I hope every last one of them is true.

But envision yourself, as much as you can, as someone living in abject poverty. No education. Dirt floors in your home. No running water. Just enough food to survive (if that). No health care. No MTV or ESPN. No telephone. No automobile (though maybe a bicycle, if you’re lucky). Now some stranger comes into your town or village. He’s wearing nice clothes. By the standards of your village or town this person is one of the richest people in the world. He has three televisions, two cars, a house with carpet, indoor plumbing, electricity, a room for every person who lives there, travels to Branson to vacation, a telephone that he can carry around in his pocket, a closet full of clothes and will buy a meal at a restaurant that is the equivalent of an entire month’s wages for you (possibly more).

He comes and digs a well in your village and it doesn’t cost your village anything. He builds a school building and you are not out a dime. He cleans your teeth and pokes a needle in your arm to keep bad stuff from happening to you and your family, all for free. Then he tells you about some guy named Jesus and asks if you want to follow him. I think the obvious answer is that for all he has done for me, my family and our village I will run naked through the streets if that’s what he asks me to do (or if that’s what people in my village do anyway I’ll run through the streets fully clothed. Whatever). Just tell me you’ll be back in six months and bring more of that good stuff with you.

I don’t say any of that as an indictment against short-term missions teams. I really, really don’t. And I hope that if that sort of thing happens that it is very rare. I just wonder. And I propose that because as I think about our church’s future in missions I don’t want to be the church that either a) goes overseas to have a nice vacation masquerading as a missions trip; b) goes somewhere thinking we are the saviors of the world; or, c) doesn’t fully appreciate our need to consider what we are doing from the perspective of those we are seeking to reach, not just our own American evangelical, often revivalistic perspective where we actually leave people worse off than we found them because what we went hoping to give them was not what they actually received.

Movies, Movies, Movies

I thought about putting this post under the category of “Art,” but considering some of the movies I’ve seen recently I decided against it. I have a friend who, when he sees a bad movie, will say, “I’ve seen better film on teeth.” While none that I’ve seen recently were quite that bad, they were not all so good. Not all of these are new releases, but just to give you an idea of some of the movies I’ve seen lately and what I thought of them, here you go:

I Am Legend

I thought that the acting, for the most part, was good in this movie. Of course, the acting, for the most part, was all done by Will Smith. The movie does have an interesting story line. A scientist has found a cure for cancer that is 100% effective. But apparently it ends up killing the vast majority of humanity, turning a host of others into cannibalizing freaks and leaves the rest to be eaten for dinner by those freaks. I won’t give away any more than that. But overall I did not like the movie. I suppose they did their job well in that they kept me tense and on the edge of my seat the whole time. But then that’s pretty much why I didn’t like it. I don’t like movies that make me feel like I’ve been through an hour-and-a-half workout by the time it’s over.

War Of The Worlds

This movie is a re-make of the H.G. Wells novel. On the whole I enjoyed the story line. I just didn’t like Tom Cruise very much. Of course, there is yet another scene in a Tom Cruise movie where he is running like lightning with every vein in his head popping out. I think that must be in his contract somewhere. “This movie shall have at least one scene where Tom runs like mad.” Anyway, aliens have invaded planet earth and they are exterminating humanity in vampire-like fashion, drinking their blood as they go. Tom is out to save his family, and as much of humanity as possible (except for the creepy guy who offers them refuge in his house. You can tell right away that this is not a man to be trusted). Once again, I will not give away the story, but I will say that this movie was decent, though I probably would have liked the book better.

Stardust

A young man makes a promise to a girl that he loves (who is rather shallow, yet pretty) that he would bring her a star if she would marry him. He travels into a magical world beyond the wall of his home town to do just that. But this star is also being pursued by three witches and a prince as well because she holds the promise of immortality and power within her heart. Stardust reminds me a little of one of my very favorite movies: The Princess Bride. I really enjoyed this one, though I really do wish that I could once, just once, see Michelle Pfeiffer do something different in a movie. Watching her I couldn’t tell if I was watching Stardust, Hair Spray or Batman Returns. Robert De Niro, on the other hand, was excellent and very entertaining.

Others I’ve seen and my recommendations:
The Bourne Ultimatum.

If you don’t like the Bourne movies then there’s just something wrong with you.

The Italian Job.

A little bit like Oceans 11 (or 12, or 13). I liked this one as well.

Horton Hears a Who.

I can’t say if this was really bad, but it was bad enough that I slept through a good portion of it - right there in the theater.

Things You Need To Know About You

Today I want to point you to the blog of Ernest Goodman. Ernest is a missionary in Western Europe. I consistently learn oodles of stuff about myself, about how I approach my faith, about how I lead others in living out lives as followers of Jesus, and especially about things I need to quit doing and things I need to start doing in reaching out to others around me, by reading what he writes.

When you visit his blog, go with your defenses down. Go as a learner. And be ready to hear the heart of someone who can teach the church in America a lot about how to reach our own culture, as explained from the perspective of one who is reaching out to people in a not-so-different culture.

Just So You Know

I really disliked Easter coming so early this year.

Some at church were put out because it fell at the end of Spring Break.  To me that was a minor detail.  Yes, it was inconvenient for the Spring Break plans of many, but hopefully our spiritual calendars take some precedence over our school calendars.  There are some things important enough that we’ll suffer through these little inconveniences.

No.  For me it didn’t have anything to do with Spring Break.  It had much more to do with a sense that we rushed right through Lent, right through some important stuff that we need to deal with in ourselves between Christmas and Easter.  I don’t necessarily mean anything morbid, like we need to flagellate ourselves spiritually as long as possible so we give our self-image a good beating.  But I do think that more often than not I am too prone to gloss over my own failures without dealing seriously not only with the nature of my shortcomings but also allowing God to apply an appropriate remedy.

Yes, we need to get out of the Lent season.  It is a season, not a lifetime.  But that shouldn’t mean that we hurry it along and miss the spiritual benefits it brings to us.

Beyond that, most of the grass around here is still brown.  Easter is about life, new life, resurrection from the dead.  God planned the season well so that spiritual realities might also be seen in some corresponding physical realities.  Yet the only thing budding around here right now are the Bradford Pears.  Granted, that is a sight all by itself, but it still falls short of the flower blossoms, the greening of the grass and the leafing of the trees that will be well under way in just a couple more weeks.

Fortunately the next time Easter falls this early will be decades from now.  When it happens, if you see a grumpy old man walking around complaining in mid-March that will be me.  Just so you know.

Yo No Creo

I’ve come to a new spiritual revelation lately.  I think I now understand the tongues issue.

Cessationists claim that tongues and all miraculous gifts ceased with the closing of the New Testament canon of Scripture.  Continualists believe that tongues and other miraculous gifts are still active in our day.  Cessationists generally claim that the tongues spoken of in the New Testament were known languages.  I’m now inclined to believe that tongues may still exist today and that they are, in fact, known languages.

You see, every time my family goes to Taco Bueno we see Pentecostals there.  Every time.  They are impossible to miss.  Uncut hair in a bun.  No makeup.  No jewelry.  Denim skirts.  Long-sleeved white blouses.  That true even of the women.

But they are always in Taco Bueno.  I think tongues may be derived from a Spanish food menu.

Who Sinned, This Man, Or His Parents?

In John 9 we find a story about a man who sat in the temple courts of Jerusalem day-by-day, likely begging for a living, because he was blind.  First Century Jewish culture didn’t have much of a place for people with infirmities.  Begging in a heavily trafficked place in hopes of finding some kind-hearted person of faith who might have mercy on you and spare some change was often the best they could hope for.

Society generally looked upon those people as sinners.  It was in their DNA one way or another.  They were what they were because of something either they had done or something their parents had done.  It was hard, if not impossible, for anyone to think of them otherwise.  That’s why those disciples only had two viable options in their question to Jesus - "Who sinned, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?"  They simply couldn’t imagine a third category.  We both know innately and through Old Testament Scriptures that our sin has a price, a consequence.

But the Old Testament Scriptures also taught that the sins of fathers are visited on their children to the third and fourth generation.  So which was it?

I was thinking about this passage this week as I was talking to a friend going through some difficulties.  Bad news from the doctor.  Not life-threatening, but pretty devastating nonetheless.  News that has ramifications for the rest of life and the disappointment that the kind of life hoped for will never be a possibility.

As a pastor I’ve dealt with these sort of situations before.  "Preacher, I’ve asked God over and over why this is happening to me?  What have I done?  Is there some unconfessed sin in my life?"

My answer this week was the same as it normally is: "It was nothing you’ve done.  Quit beating yourself up."

How can I be so sure?  Do I have some special window into the hearts of others?  Or am I more Catholic than Baptist and think that I have some sort of authority to pronounce a person sinless?

The Bible speaks of God as our heavenly Father.  As a parent I hope to take my own responsibilities as a father seriously.  On occasion I have to discipline my kids.  I try to measure the punishment according to the offense.  If anything I may occasionally be too easy rather than too hard.  Sometimes I want to be harder than I know is appropriate.  But there is one thing I always try to do.  This is true both for your children and for your pets.  Don’t wait until weeks, months or years after the offense to mete out the punishment.

I would never think to save up some punishment for years, even decades, so that I might come back and punish my kids for what was done decades earlier.  It just wouldn’t make sense.  To them or to me.  When I took our dog Nikki to obedience school and they talked to us about potty training they told us that if your pet has an accident never wait until the next day to correct the problem.  If you do they won’t be able to connect the dots.  They’ll wonder why they are being punished.  And they won’t learn what you are trying to teach them.

So I approach these questions, "Why is this happening to me," in a similar way.  I do believe that our actions have consequences and that sinful actions have damaging consequences.  But most of those consequences are very obvious.  I’ve never met a lifelong smoker who got cancer who also asked, "Why did I get lung cancer?"  They know why.  I’ve never known someone who’s child was killed while driving 100 mph wonder, "Why did God take my baby?"  They know that their child was driving 100.  The cause and effect, or in Biblical terms the sowing and reaping relationship, is obvious.

But when we are unable to connect the dots I don’t believe that the God the Bible describes to us is the sort of God who decides to put off our punishment just long enough for us to forget what it was that we did.  It’s a very poor view of God that sees him sitting in heaven thinking, "Ok….now that she’s forgotten all about this particular sin I can now punish her for it, and oh, the joy of watching her wonder what’s going on!"  No.  That is a sadist, not a Father.

So if a person cannot see their current suffering as a direct consequence of something they’ve done I am more than happy to help relieve them of their burden.  And in the case of John 9 Jesus’ answer was, "It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him."  So my next step is to work with the person to try to discover what "works of God" can be displayed in their circumstances.  The ways really are almost endless.  But I have found that this opens up new possibilities of hope in the midst of tragedy.  Instead of getting lost in hopelessness and despair they begin to get a renewed sense of purpose.

What do you think?  Does all of that sound too trite?

We Now Bring You This Important Sports Announcement

I want to take a minute to pump up the Sapulpa Lady Chieftains’ basketball team today.  The Lady Chieftains have only lost one game this season and will play in the second round of the state playoffs today.  Most are picking them to win the state 6A championship for the second year in a row.  I may take a trip down to the Ford Center in OKC this afternoon to watch them play.  Go Lady Chieftains!

The Antioch Network of Churches and Diversity

Several weeks ago I was invited to attend a meeting in Arlington, Texas that was an exploratory meeting to discuss the formation of a network of churches which would work together for gospel purposes. I had just returned home from a week in Spain and while the meeting held some interest for me I felt like I needed to stay home to help my wife with our six kids.

But then about two weeks ago Bro. Dwight McKissic called me to tell me that he really appreciated the three posts I had written here on the Church - A Diverse Body (here, here and here), and particularly the third post. And then he asked if I would come and share my thoughts at this exploratory meeting in Arlington. After talking to my wife about this I agreed to go. I gave my presentation this morning and was asked if I would post the manuscript of my notes here.

Much of what follows is my attempt to combine the main points of those three posts into one presentation. However, it is more than a simple restatement of those posts as I added some information and then attempted to tailor it to the audience to which I was asked to speak (a diverse group of white, black, Hispanic, Asian, men and women). To read those notes simply click the link below.

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