PatrickMead

Please Update Your Bookmarks

2006-12-27T06:53:00.000-08:00

Since Blogger has improved itself to the point of uselessness, I have transferred to Theobloggers and moved all my works to www.patrickmead.net. Tentpegs can be found at www.patrickmead.net/tentpegs. I may be adding a third blog about guitars and songs... but that is down the road. Remind me to link to you from my new page if I haven't already. I don't want to drop the ball during this move. See you at my new home!

Remains of the Day

2006-12-26T07:51:00.000-08:00

Excuse me for borrowing the title of a great old Anthony Hopkins movie, but I couldn't help but think of it as we carted boxes and paper and ribbons to the curb for today's garbage pickup. We spent a lot of time wrapping all that stuff. It was easy to tell which packages I wrapped (remember: white men can't wrap) as they looked like they'd been attacked by the Tasmanian Devil... if he was blind and had ADHD. Kami's packages were, as always, perfect. Regardless, all of that was over.

A day spent with my kids and wife (and son in law). We ate -- but not too much. We watched movies on TV. We gave each other presents. Most people would say we spent too much but I would disagree. I want to give it all away. Once, my wife took me through a museum in Europe that housed all the best works of a famous painter. The tour guide was really into his spiel and was ready for the dramatic ending when he said, "Yet, he died penniless." Not having much of a brake on my mouth, I said out loud, "Good timing!" He didn't seem to appreciate the sentiment.

There is no joy like giving. A lot of the season seems to be a waste. We burn up tons of kilowatts with Christmas lights (my house looks like the cover for "We Love Electricity" magazine), spend way too much on wrapping paper and bows that will be disgarded almost immediately, and worry over dinners that take four times as long to prepare as they do to eat.

Why? Because it's fun. It is a family thing, something we do together and for each other. Let other preachers be grinches and Scrooges. Let them rail against the materialism, against the waste, against the remnents of paganism...

By the way, on that last point: we had two trees up on our stage at Rochester Church. One man pointed at them and said, "You know, those things are pagan." I said, "No they're not. God made trees. Sure, the pagans misused them from time to time but we've redeemed these two. They're ours. They belong to God's kids now." I felt like the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld: "Pagan? No trees for you!"

As for me and my house, we will celebrate any chance we have to be with each other and to go overboard in giving to each other. We learned from God and His Son how to be generous, how to give away your life to find it. We will not allow the naysayers and nitwits of the age (or the pulpit) tell us that we must frown and disapprove. Because Jesus came, every day is a day of celebration and, on those special ocassions when the world joins in, we will rejoice and be lavish in His Name.

Joy to the World, indeed, people. Joy to the World.

The Gift of a Song

2006-12-20T10:27:00.000-08:00

Mice brought us one of the greatest, most powerful hymns of all times. The year was 1818 when a band of roving actors came to Oberndorf, a small Alpine village near Salzburg, to present the Christmas story at the local church, a Catholic church named after St. Nicholas. The problem was that the organ wasn't working; mice had entered it and damaged it so that it couldn't be used and the repairman couldn't get there before Christmas.

The troup did its performance at a private home that was equipped with a small organ but this, plainly, was not going to be adequate for Christmas night, just two nights away. The assistant pastor, Joseph Mohr, took the long way home that night, contemplating the Christmas story, wondering what he could do to bring music to his flock on Christmas. As he looked over the snowclad village he recalled a poem he had written two years previously. If only there were music written for it, maybe a way could be found to present that as their carol for the church. The next day he spoke to the church organist, Franz Gruber, and asked if there was any way that music could be written for his poem; music that could be played by a simple guitar, without the organ or choir backing them up.

Guitars were not accepted by most churches. They were too common, reminiscient of the drunken bards or fools that played at traveling fairs. But Gruber stepped up and worked for hours -- for that was all the time he had -- and came up with a simple tune. They stepped up the next night and sang, for the first time, "Stille Nacht" or "Silent Night."

Weeks later the organ repairman came by and worked on the church's organ. He asked Gruber to play something to make sure he had repaired it adequately. Gruber played "Silent Night" and the repairman was so stunned by its beauty and simplicity that he asked for a copy. He took it to his own Alpine village the next week. At his home church, he played it where it was heard by two different families of traveling singers.

The Strasser sisters took the carol all over northern Europe, eventually performing it for King Frederick William IV of Prussia who was so taken by the song that he ordered it sung every Christmas in his cathedral. The year was 1834 and the song wasn't done traveling. The other family, the Rainers, took the carol to the United States and sung it there, in German, in 1839. It wasn't until 1863 that the song was translated into English and broke out of the large German communities in the US (in Nebraska, Texas, Minnesota, New York, Pennsylvania, and Kansas) and into the consciousness of the entire nation.

But it wasn't done. Fast forward to 1914. The world is at war. It is trench warfare with millions of men mired in frozen mud, slowly dying in narrow trenches ringed with snipers, machine guns, and barbed wire. It is Christmas and all along the line, in a dozen places, something remarkable happened.

British soldiers informed their officers that the Germans were stringing colored lights and decorating trees. They could see this through a series of mirrors held up over their position on sticks. You never put so much as a hand over the parapet or it would be shot by a watchful German sniper but more and more men crowded around to look up at the mirrors and watch the lights twinkle on all along the German lines. The officers told them not to shoot... just observe and report back.

Then the sound of a song came over a German radio. An internationally known opera star was singing, with tears in her eyes and a catch in her voice, "Stille Nacht." She had one son in the British lines and one in the German. Her song was a way to touch her sons; a prayer for a night of peace and safety for her boys. When the song was over the British men sang out "Silent Night" in their own language... but still from behind their sandbags and timber reinforced trench walls. The Germans applauded so the British sang "The First Noel." The Germans responded with "O Tannenbaum" and so it went for hours, trading carols and songs back and forth until the British sang "O Come All Ye Faithful" and the Germans sang along in their own language. Two nations, two languages, joined together in one hymn.

And then... a lone German soldier stood up, exposing himself. He walked forward, a white scarf tied to a stick held almost casually in one hand. He stood there quietly, smoking a cigarette as the British wondered if this were some kind of trick. Some Scots stood up slowly and walked toward him. When they met, the Scots offered some (illegally obtained and possessed) whisky from their canteens, exchanged cigarettes, and others began to leave the trenches and join the group in the middle. Soon, hundreds were showing each other photos from home, trying to tell jokes regardless of the language barrier, and trading gifts and tokens of the season with their nominal enemies.

The lads from the Bedfordshire Regiment played the Germans in a flare lit soccer match. From time to time the teams would shuffle and there would be mixed teams playing mixed teams. The game went on for hours until the ball was punted against a barbed wire wall and was punctured.

The dead were gathered and buried in services conducted by chaplins from both sides, in two languages, with both armies standing quietly in reverence for each other.

It couldn't last... though the unofficial truce did last until New Years in some places. Eventually a shot rang out -- accidentally? -- and the men raced to their truces and the war was war once more.

But for one shining moment, something changed the horror of WWI into something holy and kind and human. And it all began with a heartsick mother singing into a radio microphone a song that wouldn't have existed at all if some mice hadn't gotten into the organ at Oberndorf. A carol that saved the day in 1818 brought a moment of peace and joy in 1914. John McCutcheon wrote a wonderful song about that night called "Christmas in the Trenches."Allow me to write those words below. I assume you already know Silent Night. Now, when you sing it, you can remember the story behind the song and the power of that simple message, then and now.

Christmas in the Trenches

My Name is Frances Tolliver, I come from Liverpool.
Two years ago the war was waiting for me after school.
To Belgium and to Flanders, Germany to here,
I fought for King and Country I love dear.

Twas Christmas in the trenches where the frost so bitter hung;
The frozen fields of France were still, no Christmas song was sung.
Our families back in England were toasting us that day,
Their brave and glorious lads so far away.

I was lying with my mess mate on the cold and rocky ground
When across the lines of battle came a most peculiar sound.
Says I, "Now listen up me boys," each soldier strained to here
As one young German voice sang out so clear.
"He's singing bloody well y'know" my partner says to me.
Soon one by one each German voiced joined in in harmony.
The cannons rested silent, and the gas clouds rolled no more
As Christmas brought us respite from the war.

As soon as they were finished, and a reverent pause was spent,
"God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" struck up some lads from Kent.
Oh the next they sang was "Stille Nacht", 'tis "Silent Night" says I,
And in two tongues one song filled up that sky.
"There's someone coming towards us" the front line sentry cried.
All sights were fixed on one lone figure trudging from their side.
His truce flag like a Christmas star shone on that plain so bright
As he bravely strode unarmed into the night.

Then one by one on either side walked into no-man's land;
With neither gun nor bayonet we met there hand to hand.
We shared some secret brandy and we wished each other well,
And in a flare-lit soccer game we gave 'em hell.
We traded chocolates, cigarettes, and photographs from home.
These sons and fathers far away from families of their own.
Young Sanders played the squeezebox and they had a violin,
This curious and unlikely band of men.

Soon daylight stole upon us and France was France once more.
With sad farewells we each began to settle back to war.
But the question haunted every heart that lived that wondrous night:
"Whose family have I fixed within my sights?"
Twas Christmas in the trenches, where the frost so bitter hung,
The frozen fields of France were warmed as songs of peace were sung.
For the walls they kept between us to exact the work of war
Had been crumbled and were gone forever more.

My name is Frances Tolliver, in Liverpool I dwell.
Each Christmas comes since World War One, I've learned its lessons well.
For the ones who call the shots won't be among the dead and lame,
And on each end of the rifle, we're the same.

Merry Christmas....

Bread on the Water

2006-12-18T07:01:00.000-08:00

One of the hardest decisions a Christian will ever make is "who do we help? Who is genuinely in need?" Deacons placed in charge of benevolence have a burnout rate approaching that of Education Deacon (who are burnout champions again for the hundred year -- since Sunday schools started). We get used to being spun hard luck stories and trying to find a clue in the complex tale -- is this legit or are they scamming us?

I remember one church I served that slaved over Christmas baskets. They went over the top on presents, clothes, and food for needy families. After getting a list of names, they got each willing member to deliver the goods to a couple of homes. I took Duncan, then aged 10, with me to a single wide trailer home nestled deep in a ravine. A few feet from the closed front door we could smell cigarette smoke and unwashed clothes. I was born in poverty and raised poor until my father could drag us into the lower middle class so I understand how people can be trapped in bad situations. I reminded myself to deliver these gifts from God's people in such a way as to honor our Lord and show His love.

It didn't work out that way. A man's voice yelled at me to open the door. I did. Smoke filled the trailer as did piles of clothes and unwashed dishes. The man and woman (husband and wife?) were sloppy and barely looked away from the telly as we told them why we were there. The man said, "I guess you can bring it in" and never moved as we carted in several huge boxes representing hundreds of dollars worth of toys, food, clothes, and gift cards. To make a long story short, no one helped us bring them in and no one thanked us for bringing them. We tried to visit with them but they wanted to watch the TV and, besides, they were busy yelling and cursing at their kids.

The next year, Duncan and I drew their name again. I said "no." There is a fine line between throwing bread on the water, wanting to do good in Jesus' Name, and, on the other hand, being a poor steward and encouraging the lazy or sinful. (this story is longer so don't write saying "maybe he had a back problem and maybe..." We checked them out thoroughly after my visit)

My parents are broken hearted. They have welcomed children into their home all of my life. Dad would adopt anyone who wanted a family. Sometimes it worked out well. Just as often, it didn't. Today, they learned that a young girl they have given their lives and money to for years has been lying to them, using them, and laughing at them behind their back. They think they have failed. Once again, I say "no." Mom and Dad are generous, kind, people. While their religion is strict and rigid, their hearts are warm and giving. They did no wrong in giving their money away (and they don't have much. Missionaries don't retire well) or in spending most of the last several years in helping this girl. It was bread on the water and, as Jesus promised, it will come back to them.

Sometimes bread comes back right in front of our eyes. After the death of Professor Jack, I wrote that we would take goods and food back down to Cass Park in his memory. Yesterday was that day. Read my daughter's blog at karagraves.blogspot.com (linked on this page) for the details. It was a glorious time of love and giving. We help people every time we go there but the bread is already coming back in the form of changed lives in our own congregation. Our people come back from Cass Park with changed attitudes, more open hearts, and a giving spirit. (full disclosure -- this ministry is run by Josh and Kara. I didn't go with them yesterday)

Maybe giving away money and goods won't change the recipient very often, but it certainly changes the giver. So, with few exceptions including the one I noted above, my family will continue to give. Will people take advantage of us? Yes. Will we be hurt financially or emotionally? Probably. Then why do we continue? Because giving is an act of grace that blesses the giver more than the receiver. We don't give so that we will feel better. We give because that's what our family does -- our earthly family and our Christian one.

It is bread on the water. It is a cup of cool water given in His Name. That means that every gift is eternal. God will remember it.

A New Toy

2006-12-16T12:28:00.000-08:00

I finally found a replacement for one of the two guitars stolen from my office a couple of months ago. After spending a lot of time in nearly 20 guitar shops in two states, I came upon this Tacoma concert style dreadnought in Limelight Music less than three miles from my office. I played perhaps a hundred guitars with costs up to $3900 as I went from place to place, but the warm sound of this guitar won me over.

I have always eschewed guitars with mahogany sides and backs as inferior to those with rosewood. Rosewood always produced such sweet highs and haunting lows... but this guitar matched the best rosewood backed guitars I could find... and for a tenth of the cost of the high end guitars. I had to check the price a few times before I believed it.

Tacoma doesn't build these anymore. The people at the shop were glad to get rid of it and I was glad to find it. It needed a home. This guitar was made back when all Tacoma guitars were handmade in a shop in the US. Handcrafted and set up by masters, they couldn't compete with cheaper guitars so Fender bought them out. The Tacoma name is still being put on guitars, but they are semi-hollow body guitars and not the same as this old masterpiece.

I brought it home last night and played it until my fingers hurt. It's been a long time since a guitar made me want to do that!

Tomorrow or the next day... a report on the birthday celebrations and a wonderful outreach planned tomorrow in memory of Professor Jack down in Detroit.

Hang in there -- blogger problem

2006-12-14T15:16:00.000-08:00

Many have tried to comment on the last post but can't. Beta Blogger doesn't seem like a good idea right now. I might have to try another service since this one keeps breaking. They claimed they had it fixed two days ago but the message boards are full of frustrated bloggers saying they are experiencing the same problem right now.

Suggestions? You'll probably have to email them....

Guns, Cookies, and Walsh

2006-12-12T12:27:00.000-08:00

A few photos since some asked privately, via email. Duncan tested for his next rank in Kenpo Karate last Saturday. He won his first black stripe on his brown belt. Kenpo has three black stripes before you test for black belt. It usually takes as long to go from brown to black as it does from white to brown... but his teacher is convinced Duncan will get it done in time for shipping out to Parris Island in late April, early May. Here is a photo of Dunk and the only other student to make that rank and also -- just for That Girl -- a photo of his arm. I wanted her to know that Joey's arms on that dancing show might not make the cut in Dunk's platoon!

Tis the season for cookie making. My daughter, Kara Graves, has been over a few days making cookies with my wife, Kami. They have made the house beautiful with their presence and laughter and they've made it SMELL TERRIFIC with the umpteen varieties of cookies. Now... if they'd only tell me where they hid them...

Some asked if there were any photos of Navy Corpsman Chris Walsh who I blogged about yesterday. Here is the only photo I can find of this American hero. Also, there are photos of his mother holding baby Mariam and Mariam after surgery with a couple of the medics who helped transport her to Boston from Iraq.

I have some guitar news but it can wait a couple of days. It would be unseemly to talk about that right after looking at these photos. Remember the Walsh family in your prayers along with Baby Mariam and her family in Fallujah.

Remember Their Names

2006-12-11T08:06:00.000-08:00

It is a crying shame that millions of Americans know the name Lynndie England and Abu Ghraib. All around the world those names and images are seared into our memory by thousands of media stories. So, it's pop quiz time: name one Medal of Honor winner, or Silver Star recipient of the Iraq War. Isn't that amazing? After five years of pounding us with one side of the story, and after our administration made countless terrible decisions about how to fight the war, it is not surprising that a majority of Americans think the war is lost. It might be, but not because of our men and women in uniform.

A case in point, from ABC News, December 7th, 2006. The event covered in the story took place in June of 2006. The First Battalion 25th Marines were out on patrol in Fallujah when an IED exploded right beside the vehicle carrying Navy medic Chris Walsh. Captain Sean Donovan and his men immediately piled out of their trucks to chase the trigger man.

As they were pursuing the man an Iraqi woman came out and began calling to them that her child was sick. They let the trigger man go and went to the woman, sending in Chris to check on the baby. The medic determined that the baby was desperately ill and needed immediate care. She was just 2 months old and suffering from a rare intestinal abnormality.

While still under the threat of another attack, Captain Donovan and Corpsman Walsh came to the same decision. "Right on the spot, the mission changed from the trigger man to the baby girl." One of the factors in their decision was the bravery of the family in coming out to ask for their help right in the middle of Fallujah -- perhaps the most hostile place in the world for any who would befriend Americans. Since the family were brave enough to risk their lives for their daughter, Walsh said, the Marines decided they could do no less.

For the next three months, Walsh and the team made house calls under the cloak of darkness into the dangerous city to help the baby. They tried to stablize her, took photographs, consulted experts, all the while arranging papers for her that would allow her to leave the country for the advanced medical care she needed. Staff Sgt. Ed Ewing (USMC) led the visits. They showed up at random times; the family never knew when they were coming. That protected the Marines and the family.

After months of caring for this family, tragedy struck. Another IED went off on September 4th, killing two Marines -- Lance Cpl. Eric Valdepenas, and Corporal Jared Shoemaker. It also killed the baby's guardian angel -- Navy Corpsman Chris Walsh.

To honor the memory of their fallen Corpsman, the Marines made that baby girl the mission of their entire unity. Eventually, they won their battle and baby Mariam was granted permission to leave Iraq. Dr. Rafael Pieretti of Boston Massachusetts General Hospital performed the surgery in October. After her successful survery, Miriam was taken home. A USMC patrol went out at night and returned her, safe and well, to her mother.

That same day, Chris Walsh's mother, Maureen, received a letter from Captain Donovan about her son's bravery and about the life that was saved because of his big heart. The letter read in part, "Although he won't be visible, Chris will be very much on that patrol, the hope for Mariam's tiny life having arisen from the charity and gallantry of your son."

In recent days, Maureen Walsh got to meet baby Mariam. "It made me feel like Chris was there," she said. "He wanted something like this. He wanted to make a difference in somebody's life."

Thank you, ABC News Online, for printing this story. If only we forgot England's name and remember the names of Chris Walsh and his buddies in the USMC who broke off a hot pursuit to save a little girl's life.

Strings and Things

2006-12-07T18:01:00.000-08:00

Elderly Instruments (www.elderly.com) was a blast, as always. It is only an hour and a half away from my house but I limit my travel there since I tend to giggle like a schoolgirl when I go. They only had a few Alvarez guitars in stock. It seems that everyone is trying to order them but they just can't ship enough of them. The cheaper ones are available, but the Yairi and Artist Series are backordered. I ordered one anyway. It may or may not be here by Christmas. I have a 28year old Alvarez Yairi 12 string and love it dearly so I am fairly confident this new guitar will do well. I would have liked to have sat around with it in the shop for awhile -- ordering without playing is risky -- but there is a 30 day no cost return policy so I think I'm safe. The model I ordered is the AD60CK Dao Dreadnought.
It should be deep enough to sound good. If it isn't... back it goes. The only guitars I played that sounded as good as my old Alvarez and Yamaha (fair is fair -- they had nearly 30 years to mellow) were a $1000 Yamaha -- the Celtic series, and a Taylor that was tagged at $3150 after a hefty discount. They had the Taylor T5 -- and incredible guitar that plays fairly well unplugged and outstanding when plugged into an acoustic amp. The plain black went for $1515 and the incredible Koa T5 went for just over $2850. That puts them out of my reach, but I am going to dream about those guitars for a good long time. Here's a photo...
And it doesn't do it justice. Excuse me... I have to go wipe up some drool.... Okay, I'm back. Since I don't play the lottery and since we have quite a few mission commitments, the T5s will have to sit on the shelf for now. The Alvarez is discounted to $450 but the reviews I've read from owners have it playing as well as guitars two and threes times as expensive. We'll see....

I'll celebrate my wife's birthday with her on Sunday. She flies off to Texas on Tuesday to be with her family at her cousin's wedding. That means I'll be here without her on my 50th birthday (the 16th, since you asked. Only nine more shopping days!). I may drive down to see my parents for a few hours. That would get me out of the State and away from possible surprise parties or other birthday ambushes. The kids (aged 23 and almost 18) ask me what I want for my birthday. Of course, I could send them the photo of the T5 but that wouldn't be fair. Fact is, if I want something I find a way to get it. Birthdays were fun back when I had no money and gifts supplied stuff I could never get on my own. Now the whole fun in birthdays and Christmas is in giving stuff away and buying extravagant presents for other people. I can remember being frustrated when I'd ask my parents what they wanted and they said nothing. They just wanted me to be there with them. I couldn't believe it then. I do now.

Home at last. A couple of inches of snow lays on our lawn and roof. Our blow up Santa has fallen over and looks like he might be drunk. My parrot sat on my shoulder and made comments as I wrapped the gifts I brought home from Indiana. My wife and I went to Joe's Crab Shack for a quick dinner and now we're back, surrounded by four Christmas trees. My son is doing his homework having just returned from a kenpo karate workout.

It's good to be home.

Guitar Hunting

2006-12-05T19:37:00.000-08:00

[for an update on JoAn Dillinger, go to tentpegs.blogspot.com]

I went to a few other guitar shops today before and after visiting the Dillingers in the hospital. There were some great guitars to be found but they seemed to be overpriced compared to Musiciansfriend.com, a website I have used several times before. Of course, Musician's Friend doesn't carry every brand and that means I can't compare prices on Larrivees there, but they have Gibsons, Guilds, Alvarez, Martins and Breedloves among others.

I went to Sam Ash, a music chain we don't have in Detroit. Most of their guitars were store brands with exotic sounding names like Carlo Robelli, Carly, Brownsville, or Benedictine. It was hard to find any guitars -- even expensive ones -- that gave the warm, lower tones I miss from my classic guitars; the ones that disappeared from my office. Martin makes a koa guitar that is priced around $500 and sounds great, but it is really made from high pressure laminate, not solid koa. I'm not sure how that would hold up over the years. Ovation has several good models. I own one already and am tempted... but the only way to get a warm tone out of one is to plug it into an amp and I prefer playing unplugged when possible. Breedloves are good and might be where I need to look... but they run $700 or so and it is hard to be that selfish with my money.

One of the commentors on the last blog wanted to learn how to play "Puff the Magic Dragon" for their child. The chords are simple ones. They repeat as below. When you see a "*" it means to keep your pinky finger on the first string (high E), third fret. This is especially effective if you play fingerstyle.

G, Bm, C*, G, Em*, A7*, D7, G

That's it. As they say in Mexico, muchas easy.

Tomorrow I speak at a local denominational high school and then meet with a couple of Noblesville elders to discuss how we do small groups at Rochester. After another lesson on grace in the evening, I will be done at Noblesville. On Thursday, I am headed home and, since I have to drive through Lansing anyway, I will stop for an hour or so at Elderly Instruments, the best and largest purveyor of quality acoustic instruments in the midwest. (www.elderly.com) I'll give you a full report....

Run, Run, Rudolph!

2006-12-04T18:44:00.000-08:00

It's a busy week in Meadville. I am on the road in Noblesville, Indiana (think -- northern Indianapolis suburb). I am giving a four day seminar on grace at a church I love. This is my 4th time here. I've only been one other place four times since we returned from Scotland nearly 20 years ago so that should reveal the depth of my affection for this congregation. They are a traditional church who are open to hearing other viewpoints... and they get that from me. I have been (theologically) kicking over chairs since I got here. Some hear and are glad. Some hear and are not. Some don't hear me at all but thank me for the sermon anyway.

Keep this in prayer: the minister's wife, JoAn Dillinger, is going in for surgery for pancreatic cancer on Tuesday morning, 5:30. The surgery is as major as it gets and is expected to last 8-10 hours. She is a sweet Christian lady and an integral part of this congregation's life. Pray for her husband, too -- Jim. They've told me I don't need to be there... but I'll show up anyway.

I wrote about Tim and Nancy Milligan on my other blog not too long ago. Nancy was taken back into the hospital yesterday (Sunday) and they discovered a new brain tumor. She is disappointed, but still has her faith. Radiation treatment starts soon.

I've been going from music shop to music shop looking for replacements for the two guitars stolen from my office. I'm not made of money so I won't be able to buy what I want, but it is a lot of fun sitting around and playing first this then that high ticket guitar. Price doesn't always indicate how good a guitar sounds. I played a no-name guitar today that was cobbled together in some sweat shop in China and it sounded better than the Fenders that cost four times as much. I'd love to replace my Yamaha and Alvarez but they don't make those models anymore. I will continue to haunt guitar shops in every town until I find the right one. It isn't a grueling task!

Between speaking, visiting the hospital, and shopping for guitars I've been finishing my Christmas gift list purchases for my family. I never have more fun than when I can spend money on them. Most of my life money has been tight and even now it isn't just laying around the house in piles. (we often run out of money before we run out of month) Whenever I get the cash and chance to spend it on fripperies, I do!!!

We went to Bronner's last week. Bronner's is the world's largest Christmas store. It is an hour north of us in Frankenmuth, Michigan. My family almost had to sedate me. I ran from display to display and would have bought out the store if Kami and American Express hadn't stopped me. Run, run, Rudolph? That punk deer's got nothing on me.

Ho, ho, ho.

Who's In Charge Here???

2006-12-01T07:35:00.000-08:00

We've been experiencing a long spell of warm weather and, I must say, it has been welcome. Michigan isn't known for good weather so these last two weeks where the temps hovered between the mid 50's and upper 60's were wonderful. We've been watching winter approach from the west for the last two weeks. Seattle got blasted first and then the rest of Washington State. For several days we watched that state get pounded by several feet of snow as we walked around our block wearing short sleeved shirts (yes, Florida, we wear short sleeves in the 50's... and some of my shirts look like they date back that far).

The news puppies and weather weinies have been running around like Chicken Little on his third cup of expresso for the last several days calling out dire warnings about the end of the good weather and the approach of Armeggedon. Or, as we call it up here, "winter". Michigan met the warnings with a collective shrug. We know it's coming. We've seen it before. We'll see it again.

This morning I awoke... and found the planet was still here. Yes, it was coated with a layer of ice, but we didn't lose power, our neighbors hadn't started eating their young, and CEO's weren't on the corner selling used pencils. The only real damage we had was our flagpole. The pole had surrendered to the ice. It was broken in half and laying on the ground. My first job of the day was to get out there and rescue the flags. Rain and snow are predicted for most of the next week and we'll survive it no matter how scared the weather wussies on TV get.

I drive to Indianapolis tomorrow to begin a four day series of lessons on grace for the Green Valley congregation in Noblesville. They are a remarkable group and I love them dearly. Keep them in prayer for they are in some distress. Their wonderful minister, Jim Dillinger, and his wife, JoAn, are facing her pancreatic cancer with faith and fortitude, but it is a hard time for all. Her surgery is Tuesday and expected to take 9 hours. They would love to save her life but they would settle for prolonging it.

I'm all dressed up, ready for a funeral in an hour or so. My son's girlfriend's grandfather passed away after a long illness. I'm not doing the funeral as he was a Catholic. I'll stand, kneel, and sit with the rest of the congregants at St. Andrews Catholic Church and show my respect for the family (and a good family they are, too) and then go back out into the dark and cold day.

It would be easy to be depressed on these days when winter howls in, the sound of icy rain on the windows keeping us awake at night, and friends are facing funerals and surgery... but I'm not doing too bad with it. I find it helpful to have these days. They remind me that I am a creature, not the Creator. I am not in charge here.

I want to save the world, but running it and saving it aren't really my responsibility. My job is to reach out with the message and love of Christ and it is His job to take it from there. I am not in charge of weather or traffic or taxes... I am only in charge of my decisions, my actions. Even then, God is gracious. He knows that we are dust. Even concerning something as important as living in peace with everyone He tells us "IF it is possible, AND as much as it lies in you..." indicating that He understands that sometimes it isn't possible and sometimes it isn't possible for ME when it might be for you. He knows our limitations and loves us anyway.

There is great comfort in trusting God. I'm glad I am just a creature and not the Creator. I'm glad I am just a servant and not a master. While I don't understand what God is doing a lot of time -- including why He allows weather wackos to live -- I trust Him. He knows what's He's doing. I just need to make sure we're stocked up on hot chocolate.

Pictures!

2006-11-28T06:15:00.000-08:00

Yea, yea, I know I just wrote a blog yesterday, but I wanted to bring you up to date on contributions to Soul Space. As of today just over $4700 has been raised for them. An astounding $1315 has come from readers of this blog! By the way, readers, let people know if you liked the CD. If any arrived cracked or damaged, let me know and we will make it right asap. Bar 12 did a concert at our church building. A young boy brought his play guitar and played along in the back of the auditorium. As the night wore on, he got closer and closer to the stage, eventually getting up with them, mimicking their moves, and giving us all a smile.

Afterwards we gathered in the foyer and exchanged high 5's and laughter. The Sacred Ink tattoo shop should open in the next few weeks. We are waiting for a contractor to put an extraction fan in the bathroom and we'll be up to code! You can follow along as Pete, Rudi, Josh, and Lance bring this work to reality by clicking on the Sacred Ink link on the right.

I consider Josh Turner to be my son. His father passed away a couple of years ago and something in my soul called me to go to Josh and offer him a place in our lives. He has a wonderful mother (and that is an understatement) and terrific friends but I am his new dad. Here is a photo of me in the middle (the short, old guy) with Duncan on the left and Josh on the right. They tell people they are brothers and ask those who look suprised if they are able to tell them apart!

While I'm posting photos, here's one of my daughter, Kara, fixing Thanksgiving dinner, one of my son, wife, and son-in-law, and one of Duncan hanging Christmas lights at our house yesterday. God bless all of you who keep us in prayer and those who support our mission work, including Soul Space. It is a joy to be a part of your community of faith.

Who's Holding The Dynamite?

2006-11-27T09:09:00.000-08:00

A story in the news a few years ago still comes to mind from time to time and makes me shake my head. It seems that a suicide bomber was dispatched to blow up a restaurant in downtown Tel Aviv. The bomb went off when the bomber was several blocks away from the target and only the bomber died. Subsequent investigation by the Israeli police revealed that the bomb was on a timer and it went off on schedule. So why wasn't the bomber in place? Witnesses came forward who saw the bomber dallying around this or that store, apparently in no hurry to get where they were going. As hard as this is to believe, the findings of the investigation were that the bomber forgot when they were supposed to be in place. It seems that they were distracted by other things and forgot the what, where and when of their mission.

Strange... but not without precedent. A lot of people forget that they are holding the dynamite. Hey, some grenades are duds and smoking doesn't kill everybody that tries it, but the fact is that most people who do stupid and dangerous things on a regular basis WILL pay a price for it.

They told us sex was free. [and, kids, don't think guys my age don't know anything about sex. My generation invented free sex. Madonna is about to celebrate her 50th birthday, remember?] The pill came along, allowing women to have sex without unwanted pregnancy. Abortion was made legal so that any mess-ups with the pill could be removed quietly in a doctor's clinic. Vietnam kicked over some dominoes that didn't stop falling until every establishment rule was questioned and most were abandoned. The Guess Who sang about living in a land where sex was free and natural and we could all live together.... and then the bomb went off. AIDS, Chlamydia, Genital Warts, Syphilis, Gonorrhea, Herpes, HIV, Human Papillomavirus, Trichomaniasis... and the list goes on and on.

They told us condoms would protect us... but the bombs still went off.

They didn't tell us about destroyed hearts, broken bodies, shattered homes, jealously, unwanted and unloved children, women being abandoned with their babies.... all when the bomb went off.

They told us that life is shopping and life is stuff. God told Adam and Eve to "be fruitful and multiply" but we are told to "shop till you drop!" Again, the generation that came of age in the 60s and 70s came up with the idea of first dropping all possessions and then launched into the Me Decade. A perfect storm of money, time and opportunity made materialism the main religion of the day. As early as "Father Knows Best" TV showed us that dads needed to go away to make money for cool new appliances and treats for the family left alone without him. This week, it is safe to say, Kohls, Goodys, Sears, Best Buy, Target... ALL of them will have sales. They have them every week. We see the "48 hours only!" sticker and we run to grab yet one more thing... and then the bomb goes off. By now we should have realized that we will never be satisfied with the stuff we are buying. The world will bleed you dry and leave you looking stupid in photos that are only four years old ["you wore THAT?"]. The world is left enriched. You are left poor and with a closet full of stuff you don't want to be seen in.

But the point is... you are left.

They told us to say whatever was on our mind, to let it all hang out, and to never repress ourselves: Express, don't repress! But then the bomb goes off when our words hurt others, when they end our career or marriage, or when they leave scars on our children. When the bomb goes off none of the self-help or self-actualization gurus are there to help pick up the pieces; none of them come to apologize.

They told us that we weren't created or designed. They told us that we were merely a cosmic accident; that our lives meant nothing and we were going nowhere. We were told that we had no special place in the universe; that we were no better than dogs or trees or spotted owls. Then the bomb went off when kids turned to drugs, shot up schools, and set homeless people on fire. Rather than contributing to the good of society, they demanded more from it and turned viciously on anyone who demanded something of them. We should have seen that coming. We should have spotted the dynamite.

In every crowd, in every situation, in every choice, ask yourself "who's holding the dynamite?" It's the world's job to hand out dynamite. It's our responsibility to make sure we aren't holding it... much less passing it on to others.

Thank God for These Men

2006-11-21T07:55:00.000-08:00

In the spirit of the season, I want to address one object of my prayers. In a time where so many paint murals of moral equivalency between us and those who attack our people in Sadr City, Fallujah, and Bagdad, hear this story from the latest issue of Marine Times, a weekly magazine for Marines and their families.

"The insurgency in Iraq is arming children in Fallujah with fake plastic firearms... Intelligence has informed us that al Qaeda is handing out realistic toy weapons to the children of Fallujah in hopes that a US service member might mistakenly shoot an Iraqi child... [The] 1st Battalion, 24th Marines were visiting an all girls school in the city when a young boy ran down the street with what appeared to be a real handgun... The Marines stopped the boy, discovered his weapon was a toy, then traded him a soccer ball for it."

Can there be any clearer picture of the difference between our boys and our enemies? In the name of Allah, thuggish Islamists hand out plastic toys so that the US press can pillory any American service member who reacts to the presence of a "weapon" and fires upon the child. (and don't say "just don't shoot children." We learned in Vietnam and in several conflicts since that children are often combatants and that hesitating frquently means you and your team members die) Our side shows restraint, stops them and trades them for a soccer ball.

Outstanding, Marines. You make us proud.

I am also thankful for the life of Cpl. Jason Dunham. Jason was only 22 years old when he and his team were manning a checkpoint near Karabilah. Cpl. Dunham received word that a Marine convoy had been ambushed. He led his squad to the site of the attack where he stopped the killers as they tried to escape. One jumped out and grabbed him by the throat. During the hand to hand combat the insurgent dropped a grenade and Dunham quickly jumped on it to shield his fellow team members. The grenade pierced his Kevlar and helmet, a shard of shrapnel entering his skull. Still, he cared for his team members' wounds and continued to fight until he expired from his grievous wounds.

Lance Corporal Jason Sanders, one of Dunham's team who was wounded, said, "He knew what he was doing. He wanted to save Marines' lives from that grenade." Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) wrote to the President asking that he award the Congressional Medal of Honor -- the first awarded to a Marine since 1970 -- to Dunham posthumously. He wrote that Dunham's actions "embodied the courage and fortitude that have made the armed forces of the United States the most respected in the world. I can imagine no clearer case of an individual soldier exhibiting the ideals that the Congressional Medal was established to honor."

It is the second CMH awarded for the Iraq war. The first one was awarded to Sgt. 1st Class Paul Ray Smith who gave his life by continuing to move and fire against an overwhelming force, taking the lives of 20-50 enemies while saving, according to the award, at least 100 American soliders.

My prayers of thankfulness this season will include thanks for the Cpl. Dunham and Sgt. 1st Class Smith, for the parents that raised such brave and honorable men, and for the families they left behind. Because of their faithfulness and sacrifice I can enjoy a day of feasting and football with my family. I can go to worship openly with my brethren on Sunday and enter the shopping mall without real fear of bombs or beheading because of these men and those like them.

There is no moral equivalence between our men and theirs. Ours do not behead or try to lure children into death traps. Ours do not beat women and shoot them in the back of the head for wearing makeup, listening to secular music, or being a member of a different denomination. When our men step over the line and commit crimes we aggressively prosecute and them and treat them with the shame and derision they deserve. But that doesn't happen often for, as Senator Schumer said, our military is the best behaved, most professional, and most respected in the world.

And that's why the US and Marine Corps flags will fly from my house this week and every week. God bless all who are far from home in harm's way this season. Let us never, never, never forget them.

The Collar

2006-11-18T08:12:00.000-08:00

I lean my hands on the bathroom counter and stare at my face reflected there. It bears the marks of nearly 50 years on this planet, most of which have been spent in ministry to the corners, the shadows, of this or that country. My face is that of an old soldier, one who has fought hundreds of battles with demons, one who fights his own battles with a less-than-perfect body, pain, cynicism and weariness.

I pack yet another bag for yet another trip. It might be to speak to a hyper-conservative church or a mushy liberal one. The church might be one of "our tribe" or it might lie outside the usual reach of our arms of fellowship. It might be to a school, college, or university. I might be speaking to the staff of a hospital, hospice, or group home. The people who wait for me might love me, or might be lying in ambush. Whatever, it means that I have to leave my home, kiss my wife -- the joy of my heart -- goodbye. I'll have to fight Detroit traffic for an hour and a half to get to the airport where I'll be treated like a suspect, made to take off my jacket, shoes, and belt, remove my laptop computer, be searched for gels and liquids, made to present my ID twice and my boarding pass four times so that I will be allowed the privilege of being crammed into an uncomfortable plane for a jolting ride that ends with me hoisting my gear on and around my body like a pack mule as I search for a rental car.

Each talk saps me, but not as much as the strain of being in such close contact with so many people. Ever the loner, I'd rather take a beating than "hang out" with people, but it is part of the kingdom work I've been called to do. Smile during the meal as your migraine sets off another IED behind your eyes. Keep up the conversation with your lungs scarred by sarcoidosis. Another hotel, another unfamiliar bed, another meal out of the snack machine down the hall. The people I meet are almost uniformly good, nice, open, and friendly but that only throws my own brokenness into starker relief.

After a whirlwind speaking tour that took me to six States and two countries in five weeks I arrived back to yet another stack of requests for speaking engagements. I packed again and rode the shuttle bus from the parking area to the airport and found myself stopping just outside the doors that led up to check-in. "Quit," I told myself, almost saying it aloud. "Stop. Just tell them you aren't doing this anymore. Tell them it costs too much wear and tear on your body. Tell them you want to be home with your son during his last few months in your house. Tell them you shake at night, that the weight of this obligation gnaws at you and turns your bones to water. Tell them you aren't able to speak for God, that you aren't qualified, that they need someone stronger, better, smarter... more righteous. Someone that doesn't mind this... this ordeal."

And then a poem came back to me as clear as the day I learned it as a teenager. George Herbert, an Anglican priest, seemed to me, even back then, as a kindred spirit. In 1633 he wrote this and named it "THE COLLAR." Read it all, especially the last verse.

I struck the board and cried NO MORE!
I will abroad.
What? Shall I ever sigh and pine?
My lines and life are free; free as the road,
Loose as the wind, as large as store.
Shall I be still in suit?

Have I no harvest but a thorn
To let me blood, and not restore
What I have lost with cordial fruit?
Sure, there was wine
Before my sighs did dry it. There was corn
Before my tears did drown it.
Is the year only lost to me?
Have I no bays to crown it?
No flowers, no garlands gay? All blasted?
All wasted?

Not so, my heart, but there is fruit,
And thou hast hands.
Recover all thy sigh-blown age
On double pleasures. Leave thy cold dispute
Of what is fit, and not forsake thy cage,
Thy rope of sands,
Which petty thoughts have made, and made to thee
Good cable, to enforce and draw,
And be thy law
While thou didst wink and wouldst not see.

Away! Take heed, I will abroad.
Call in thy deaths head there: tie up thy fears.
He that forbears
To suit and serve his need,
Deserves his load.

But as I raved and grew more fierce and wilde,
At every word,
Methought I heard one calling "Child"
And I replied.... "My Lord."

So I proceeded, carrying my three bags and up the escalator, over to the counter, and began another day. I will say "yes" as long as I can, Father, but, please, come Lord Jesus.

Catch and Release?

2006-11-14T06:47:00.000-08:00

I'll be back on the old blogging schedule soon. At present I am in Vero Beach, Florida finishing a three day seminar for that congregation. I must admit that it is exceptionally pleasant to sit on my hotel balcony overlooking the ocean as I read my books and write my lessons. It would be perfect if my wife were here. She is back home in Michigan in temps of 44 with cloud and rain. I don't share much about the glory of Florida with her on the phone. I want to stay married.

My father returned from Guyana safely. He and a friend baptized 16 people and strengthened a few congregations they have established over the years. Dad's health let him down a couple of times on this journey and he fears that, at 75, he might be done with jungles. I know that is a terrible thought for him to consider.

My mother is doing very well. Thank you for your prayers.

Now... to explain the title of this blog. I fear that our times of prayer for our brothers and sisters are too much like the "sport" of fishing (c'mon, how can it be a sport if you can gain weight and get drunk while doing it?) when the rules are "catch and release." Of course, we could collectively craft several columns on "catch and release" as it is practiced by our churches: get them into studies, make them lose the argument on baptism, dunk 'em, and forget 'em. But I want to address prayer this time around...

Two weeks ago on Wednesday we began a new policy on prayer. When I called up a man who is battling cancer, I asked for all to stand who would personally commit to him that they would pray for him every day until he was completely cancer-free. They would also be committing to stay in touch with him, exchangine phone numbers and emails, making contact. having lunch, etc. Several stood, then we all stood and prayed. Next were our elders. I asked for members to stand who would remember them in prayer -- by name -- daily. I told them that by standing they were making a covenant with the elders and with God; take it seriously. Once again, quite a few stood.

Thus passed the whole hour. Hundreds prayed, stood, and made contact -- personal, meaningful contact -- with those we lifted up in prayer. At the end of the evening I asked the congregation to line the walls of the Family Room (what we call the sanctuary) as we sang some hymns. I stood in the middle of the room and asked for all who had prayer needs to come to me. The elders joined me in greeting them and making personal pledges to stand with them in prayer. It was considered by most present to be the most powerful night they had spent in worship.

We're doing it again this week. I want to make sure we are not a catch and release congregation. The only way to do that is to make religion personal; to take seriously our covenant with God and each other.

Try it at your place.

Shall We Plant?

2006-11-07T09:24:00.000-08:00

Should we plant more churches? Let's dispense with the obvious: Jesus is not optional and we want more people to worship him in spirit and in truth. That said, is church planting the answer? May I be forthright at the risk of being offensive? Perhaps we shouldn't plant churches that are just like the churches we have if those churches are not reaching their communities and the cultures that surround them. Your church may be small and struggling because it is faithful, but more likely it is small and struggling because it is not connecting with the culture that lives outside its building. Putting up another building won't help.

George Hunter III wrote about the difference between Celtic and Roman evangelistic efforts ("The Celtic Way of Evangelism"). The Romans built a building and preached a system. You could belong to that group only if you came to their building and bought into their system. You had, in short, to look like the Romans. The Celts moved into an area and, instead of building a chapel, looked for ways to serve the community. They protected travelers, provided health care, helped mend fences both physical and emotional, and worked their way into the hearts of the people so effectively that the people belonged to the community before they even believed.

Here is a quick question, the answer to which will help you determine whether you are a Celtic or Roman style church. Is your church a redeeming force or a sacred outpost? The Crusaders held territory but didn't change hearts. Is your church a crusading church or does it transform the hearts of the people in their culture? Our churches are called to be pivot points of a movement working to reform the cultures of the present day; to engage the people who ARE around us rather than the people we WISH were around us. We must be like the first century Jews who were admonished by Paul to sit in peace with the Gentiles.

Hold the line? Stay the course? Three thousand churches in the US close their doors each year (source: George Barna). While they wanted things to change, they were not willing to change. they held to their traditions and programs, answering questions the culture was no longer asking. We baptize a lot of people, but none of them are baptized because we won an argument with them about their church, their baptism, or their worship. They are baptized because people of this faith community engaged them, befriended them, served them, loved them, and cared for them until they found themselves part of the community; willing to do anything to belong to the Jesus that had found them. I don't preach against the denominations. I try to out love them, out serve them, out Jesus them so that anyone who watches can see the difference. It works.

Mark Driscoll (read "Reformission" and "Confessions of a Reformission Rev") says that the church is called to love the gospel, the culture, and the church but most churches only love two of the three. If we love the gospel and our culture but not the church, we form a parachurch organization that tries to connect people to Jesus without connecting them to each other. If we love our church and our culture but not the gospel we become a liberal, mainline denomination without power to change the world. If we love the church and the gospel but not the culture, we become isolated and our churches slowly die (it can take a century or two), prone to legalism and irrelevance. We have determined that Rochester will be a church that reaches up, reaches in, and reaches out. We will fulfill all three parts of our calling.

We are launching a multi-site in the spring of 2007. We have Soul Space reaching out to the Goths, pierced, tattooed, and addicted. We have every support group known to man using our building every week -- AA, Al-Anon, NA, NarcAnon, etc. We have missional orders -- groups of people with special callings or gifts sent out to reach people wherever they find them. One such group is a prayer group that we encourage to go door to door and ask -- in a non-threatening, sweet way -- if there is anything the people there would like for them to pray about. You would be shocked how many people say "yes" and then express a willingness to pray right then (we don't push that. We offer to put it on a list to pray about, but if we sense that they are open, we make the offer to pray immediately). We form small groups in every community and in every culture around us. While some in those small groups will never feel comfortable coming to Rochester, we consider them a church where they are and encourage them to grow up, out and in. And they do. We expect our small groups to "birth" within six months.

One of our young men used "The Passion of the Christ" as an opportunity to bring the gospel to his neighborhood. He purchased tickets for everyone in his area and personally delivered them to each home, asking them to see the movie and, if they felt comfortable with it, to visit with him about their impressions, positive or negative. We plan to have a congregation built out of his work, his patient foundation laying, in the near future.

When artists were locked out of their venues, we opened our building. Once a quarter we have an Emerging Artist night where bands can play (secular music. We ask them to keep it clean), poets can display their work, photographers and painters can place their work so that all can see and enjoy them, and those who love the theater can put on short plays for us. When the Rochester Symphony Orchestra was priced out of their venue, we offered them our building in which to practice and for a couple of concerts.

Hear that sound? Those are walls coming down. People who never considered Jesus now consider Rochester their home... and are becoming believers. People who would have shuddered at the thought of going into a church building are loved so much that they now come and go without fear. When there are incidences of domestic violence, fire, or other tragedy the Sheriff's Office calls us because they know our doors are open and we are ready to serve anyone, anywhere, anytime.

God's Helping Hands, our warehouse full of food and clothes, takes care of hundreds of people every month.

But what if the people are scary or smelly or weird? Remember Jonah. He was sent to reach Ninevah even though he didn't like those people. He was infuriated that they received the grace he was so happy to receive from the hand of God. The Jews understand this book. Each year they gather on the Day of Atonement, read this book, and declare, "We are Jonah." What if we had the heart towards the people around us that mirrored the heart of Jesus towards Jerusalem, and not that of Jonah towards Ninevah?

Shall we plant? Not if what we are already doing isn't working. Plant the gospel in the hearts of those around you -- especially in the cultures you have been avoiding -- and where it blooms into faith, THAT is the base of your church plant.

Once More Into The Breach...

2006-11-04T11:34:00.000-08:00

Back from Wichita. Tomorrow morning I will preach our three services, have lunch with my darling wife, and then on to Canada. I will be taking one of the Rochester College students with me. He lives near Beamsville, Ontario (the site of the Great Lakes Lectureship). He'll pick up his car and drive home later. I am to deliver the keynote Sunday evening ("In No Other Name but Jesus") and then give a plenary lesson on Monday ("The Importance of Church Planting") before turning around and driving back to Michigan.

The trip to Wichita went well. The minister of the Westlink congregation, Gary Richardson, and his lovely wife, Susan, were wonderful hosts. The morning was spent giving the sermon and the class for that congregation as they renewed their mission pledge for the coming year. This medium sized congregation of about 250 seems -- to my eye -- to be primarily middle and lower-middle class but they contribute over $40,000 a year to missions. All of that money was pledged that Sunday morning, which they assure me had never been done before. In excess of $12,000 was given as a down payment on their pledges. God is at work at Westlink!

That evening was the area wide worship. We met on the campus of Wichita State University and basically filled the auditorium. I've received a couple of "thank you" emails but it was hard for me to know if I reached the main group or not. I hope I did some good for my brothers and sisters in Kansas.

When I get back from Canada on Monday evening I will have just one day at home -- long enough to vote! And then I am off to Indianapolis where I speak to one of the mega-churches there, Kingsway Christian Church. This will be my second time there and I am looking forward to it.

Back Thursday afternoon in time to be off again on Saturday for Florida for a three day meeting.
My mother is doing well and thanks all for their prayers. My father is still in Guyana, way up river and out of contact. On the way down there his airline, British West Indies Airways, was making its last trip... and just in time. His plane kept breaking and had to set down to be repaired... twice! He stayed on it even as others left in fear at the thought of crossing over water at night in an aging and unreliable plane. He was to arrive at 8PM but got in at 2:45AM. Two hours of sleep and he got up to catch a ride on a boat into the interior. Did I mention he is 75 and has all the usual health problems one attaches to that age group? Being raised by Dad was like being raised in an Indiana Jones movie... except that the credits never rolled...

Snow flurries here again today. Christmas music is now being played 24/7 on WNCI, one of our FM powerhouses in Detroit. Andy Williams is advertising Branson, Missouri on TV. It might be three weeks from Thanksgiving, but Christmas is in the air.

And that's fine with me.

Shameless Plug

2006-10-31T07:27:00.000-08:00

By now many of you know a little about our outreach ministry to the rockers, tattooed, pierced... really to any who are never, ever going to enter a standard church building. Soul Space is about to occupy their storefront where they will talk to people about Jesus, give tattoos (No. Really), and counsel those who have no other place to go. Pete Grant is our lead minister for this work. He and his wife, Rudi, are wonderful people who have a heart for the "others" in our midst. Go to www.sacredink.blogspot.com and read their story.

[Quick note: when I was in Wichita this weekend I went to the mall for a quick haircut and a sandwich. They had one of those temporary Halloween costume shops set up and, as I watched. four Goths walked in a shopped for something to wear on Halloween. Cracked me up. I wanted to ask them, "What are you going as? Me? An insurance salesman? Your parents?"]

Anyway... the Soul Space people are a ministry of the Rochester Church but they are doing this ALL on their own dime. These are people without any real funds and who barely make it week to week but who have mortgaged their lives to the tune of $20,000 to get this ministry off the ground. Some of you who read this might want to help them pay that off so they can lose that burden and be blessed. I have no hesitation to ask you to send a check to "Rochester Church of Christ" at 250 West Avon, Rochester Hills, MI 48307 and we will get it to them within a week of its arrival here. I will also do a running tab on this blog, but gift givers will remain anonymous. I will send you a letter from the church thanking you for your gift and that will satisfy the IRS (yes, both the Rochester Church and Soul Space are IRS approved non-taxable entities).

If you want something tangible for your money, two of Soul Space's finest are Josh Turner and Lance Handyside. These are remarkably talented young men who formed a group known as Bar 12. I have always loved the blues and have a very large collection of it... and these two are up there among the best of the best. To raise money for this ministry, they cut a CD that absolutely rocks and blows the doors off anything at Best Buy. If we genetically engineered two babies from the DNA of the Marshall Tucker Band, Pink Floyd, Robert Johnson, Stevie Ray Vaughn and Lynyrd Skynyrd it would be Bar 12. I bought a pile of their CDs (and I'm Scottish, remember! When I open my wallet George Washington blinks; it's been so long since he's seen the light) to give out as Christmas gifts. Some covers and some originals are on the disk and you will love it.

Send us a check to the Rochester Church for $15 and I'll send you a CD. All proceeds will go to Bar 12 and Soul Space.

Here's a promise -- if someone out there gives the whole $20,000, I'll tell you. If we sell that many CDs, I'll tell you. You will know every amount every step along the way.

If we can make this work, souls will be saved and the church -- not just here but worldwide -- will change as others see these pioneers and follow in their footsteps to reach outside our church buildings to those Jesus loves in the shadows and corners of our culture.

Two Weeks of Whiplash

2006-10-27T07:22:00.000-07:00

The title of this post doesn't come from physical whiplash (although it came close -- read my tentpegs blog for today to see what I mean) but from the metaphysical whiplash I get everytime I get into a marathon travel binge.

On Saturday I fly to Wichita. I'll get to speak to the church that morning as they raise their mission money for the year. That afternoon I am to speak with the elders about how Rochester Church is reaching the unreached and how we have navigated the changes in our culture and congregation. That evening I speak for all the Wichita Churches of Christ as they have their annual shared worship time. I fly back on Monday. On Thursday I speak at Rochester College on a panel with four clergypersons from other faiths. We're to do a short chapel service in the morning and then a two hour question and answer period that evening as we discuss the way women are treated in our various religious tribes. The following Sunday I preach the three morning services at Rochester and then drive to Beamsville, Ontario to speak at the Great Lakes Lectureships. I keynote that on Sunday night ("In the Name of Jesus -- and no other name") and give a class the next morning on the importance of church planting. Then... I drive back into the US, spend one day at home, and drive on to Indianapolis where I will speak to a Christian Church that Wednesday evening on the importance of knowing and living the Word of God. The next Saturday I fly out to Vero Beach, Florida to speak for three days at a congregation that helps us support the Manry family in Uganda.

So, to wrap up:
Wichita, Kansas
Rochester, Michigan
Beamsville, Ontario, Canada
Rochester, Michigan
Indianapolis, Indiana
Rochester, Michigan
Vero Beach, Florida
Shady Rest Semi-Retirement Community for the Religiously overactive and Slightly Pooped Out, Rochester, Michigan

My travel schedule for next year is severly curtailed by comparison as we keep most dates open so that if Duncan gets leave or has an important Marine Corps ceremony we can be with him. But for now.... zoom!

As I climb on the plane or point my car in various directions I often wonder, "How did this happen? How did an infamous loner who hates traveling and crowds get into this? How did Bill and Kitty's kid end up here? How much longer can this go on before somebody points at me and shouts out 'He's not qualified!' Did that last sign really say no rest area for the next 67 miles? I just drank a 7-11 Bladder Buster sized Diet Coke!"

Here's the deal: pray for me and I'll pray for you. I'll try to write some in between journeys, promise.

A Prayer for Scott

2006-10-23T08:06:00.000-07:00

Scott and Debbie Borawski were members at Rochester Church for years. He had served in the military early in their marriage but had left it to go back to college when I met them. Debbie is one of those people who is endlessly energetic, optimistic, passionate, and sweet. Scott was the steady one, solid and thoughtful. Not long after 9/11 Scott indicated that he might re-enter the army. He was talked into finishing his degree, which he did a few years ago. He immediately went back to the Army. While he tried for Officer Candidate School, they gave him sergeant stripes instead and sent him to armor school.

Eventually, Scott left his wife and beautiful children behind and went to Iraq. His men loved Scott -- calling him "the old man" since he was older than most of the other soldiers. He was their team leader, but last Monday the 16th of October he was pulled from patrol to do Unit Movement paperwork. His four man team -- Colberston, Dumas, Unger, and Lauden -- went out without him. All four were killed by a roadside bomb (aka IED). The bomb was a powerful one that shredded their vehicle and the men inside.

The four men had been planning a big party for their "old man's" 36th birthday on the 21st of this month, but the party didn't take place. Scott was left alone, saved by a strange combination of Army paperwork and the Hand of God. He is getting care in Iraq and Debbie is surrounded by Army wives -- including those of the lost men, but what they all need is the love, grace, and healing that can only come from God.

Pray. And pray again. Pray for them by name. Create support groups for everyone in your congregation who is the parent or a sweetheart of a military person. And pray again.

My son and I went to see "Flags of Our Fathers" last Friday and we both enjoyed it. I feared an anti-military screed and he feared a whitewash of the brutality of war. Our fears were unfounded. It was an honest look at a time in our history that often gets turned into little more than a cartoon. It made me remember a line from the old M*A*S*H TV show after one of the doctors loses a young soldier. The CO tells him, "The first rule of war is that young men die. The second rule is that doctors can't revoke the first rule." (or something like that. It's been twenty years, people!)

Regardless of politics -- and please, no political comments need to be made to this post -- it is entirely appropriate to pray for these men and women and to pray for their families and to pray that God will guide the leaders of this and every nation. One lady in our congregation spends one hour in prayer every day -- you read that right -- asking God to bring the Muslims to Jesus. I pray that one day we will be able to send our sons with Bibles and not bayonets.

NOTE: some of you will want to write Scott and/or Debbie and offer support and condolences. I would love for you to do that. I will NOT post their emails and addresses here for there are too many who troll through the internet so that they can grab those addresses and then send "that's what you get you son of a..." letters to them. If you want to get in touch with them, email me. If I know you or have reason to think you are legit, I will send you their contact info.

What Eric Blair Learned

2006-10-19T08:10:00.000-07:00

Eric Blair was born to an English Civil Servant working in India. Sent back to England for his education, he was spotted early on by observant teachers -- this one was a thinker and a writer. He was also an adventurer. As most young men did -- at that time and now -- he felt himself morally superior to his parents and moved to the political left. He wrote "The Road to Wigan Pier" about the poverty in rural England and went off to Spain to join the Marxist forces during the Spanish Civil War. Confronted with the realities of Communism and with the inevitable slide of leftism towards fascism (and, yes, the political right can take you there, too, but this is Eric's story) he began writing under a pen name, one that has become famous worldwide -- George Orwell. He first wrote "Animal Farm" as an anti-Stalinist screed and at the same time that the New York Times was writing a year long series praising Stalin. Blair/Orwell then moved to the Scottish island of Jura and wrote "1984."

Originally a pacifist, then a partisan for the left, and then a pacifist again, he came to the sad realization that pacifism was only possible when men stood ready to protect the pacifists. He wrote this: "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."

Here are some other quotes by and about those rough men.

"Appeasers believe that if you keep throwing steaks to a tiger, the tiger will become a vegetarian." (H.H. Broun, 1888-1939)

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feelings which thinks that nothing is worse than war is much worse. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free -- unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself." (John Stuart Mill, 1868)

"Those poor bastards. They've got us surrounded. Now we can fire in any direction. They won't get away this time... They have us right where we want them." (Col. "Chesty" Puller, USMC, the most decorated Marine of all time, December 1950, Choisin Reservoir)

"The Spartans do not ask how many the enemy number, but where they are." (Spartan poet, c. 415 BC)

"Nothing is worse than war? Dishonor is worse than war. Slavery is worse than war." (Winston Churchill, 1940)

"Remember: when enemies and terrorists threaten, it is always the Marine Warrior, not the politician, who ensures the survival of our society. It is always the Marine Warrior, not the news media, who guarantees our freedom of the press. When the flak flies it is the Marine Warrior, not the lawyer, who preserves our civil liberties." (Marion Sturkey, USMC)

"I am an American, fighting in the armed forces which guard my country and our way of life. I am prepared to give my life in their defense." (Article 1, Code of Conduct, US Armed Forces)

"Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and success of liberty." (John F. Kennedy, US President, 20 January 1961)

"The last time any of his fellow prisoners heard him, Captain Versace was singing God Bless America at the top of his voice." (from the Medal of Honor citation given posthumously to Captain "Rocky" Versace, US Army, who was dragged from a bamboo cage and executed by the enemy on 26 September 1965)

"...he was again wounded, this time in the right hand, which prevented him from operating his vitally needed machine gun. Suddenly, and without warning, an enemy grenade landed in the midst of the few surviving Marines. Unhesitatingly and with complete disregard for his own personal safety, Corporal Barker threw himself upon the deadly grenade, absorbing with his own body the full and tremendous force of the explosion. In a final act of bravery, he crawled to the side of a wounded comrade and administered first aid before succumbing to his wounds... He gallantly gave his life for his country." (Medal of Honor citation, LCpl. Jedh C. Barker, USMC, 1967)

"Freedom is not free, but the Marines will pay most of your share." (Ned Dolan, USMC)

"Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they've made any difference. The Marines don't have that problem." (Ronald Reagan, US President, 1985)

"They told us to open up the Embassy or "we'll blow you away." And then they looked up on the roof and saw the Marines on the roof... and they said in Somali, "Igarilli ahow" which means "Excuse me, I really didn't mean it. My mistake."" (Karen Aquilar, in the US Embassy, Mogadishu, Somalia, 1991)

And, finally, this poem by an unknown writer:

"I am a small and precious child, my dad's been sent to fight.
The only place I'll see his face is in my dreams at night.
He will be gone far too many days for my young mind to keep track.
I may be sad, but I am proud,
Because my daddy's got your back...

"I am a caring mother. My son has gone to war.
My mind is filled with worries that I've never known before.
Everyday I try to keep my thoughts from turning black.
I may be scared, but I am proud,
Because my son has got your back...

"I am a strong and loving wife, with a husband soon to go.
There are times I'm terrified in a way most will never know.
I bite my lip, and force a smile as I watch my husband pack...
My heart may break to pieces, but I am proud,
Because my husband's got your back...

"I am a Marine, Soldier, Sailor, Airman, serving proudly, standing tall.
I fight for freedom, yours and mine, by answering the call.
I do my job while knowing the thanks it sometimes lacks.
Please say a prayer that I'll come home soon...
Because it's me who's got your back."

A Scotsman With A Grievance

2006-10-16T07:47:00.000-07:00

The title for this blog comes from a P.G. Wodehouse quote: "It is never difficult to distinguish between a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine." I happen to think that Wodehouse was one of the most brilliant writers of the last century and, once again, he has nailed it. I don't have pet peeves. I have full kennels of frustration.

But things have been going pretty well. I just got back from a trip to do a men's retreat in Northwestern Indiana. I left a yard half covered in snow and drove in horrible winds so I had to concentrate more than usual on my driving. Good thing I wasn't in a place where I could be distracted by scenery! I've always thought that I would like to die in Indiana. You see, the transition between life and death would hardly be noticeable. I won a contest once to spend a week in Indianapolis. Second prize was two weeks. (all right, my Indiana friends, I'm kidding!!! I love you. And your State? Beautiful! Especially the Wal-Mart in Delphi)

Good thing the political world is there to distract me. It seems the Republicans are somewhat like a bull who carries his own china shop with him. It's almost like I'm reading the longest suicide note in history. But do I really want to hand power to John Kerry? His face reminds me of a female llama who's been surprised in her bath. Some of Pelosi's speeches make me think I could drive an 18 wheeler between any of her points and never have to be concerned about scraping against a fact.

Besides, any government solution is usually worse than the problem it was meant to address. And hearings and committees? I think they are political dead-ends meant to lure ideas and facts deep into them where they can be quietly strangled.

Anybody else notice that Jesus was born AND died on a holiday? What are the odds of THAT?

I'm reading Alcorn's book on heaven. It's a good read but it makes me wonder if "church" couldn't be defined as a man who's never been to heaven preaching to a bunch of people who will never go there.

Well, nobody said living would be easy. However, every year you get a free trip around the sun. That's something, at least. I don't want to be a pessimist (my definition: a man who, when he smells flowers, looks about for a coffin) and I don't think I'm an optimist (my definition: an accordian player with a pager). Realism isn't really working for me, either. Yet, work enough realism into a statement and it becomes comedy, such as when Groucho Marx said, "I've had a wonderful evening -- but this wasn't it."

I could still be poor, and I'm not. I'm paycheck to paycheck, but at least they last that long. When we were kids our house was so small that when you entered the front door you were in the back yard. We couldn't afford toilet paper so we tied our pet hedgehog to a stick and told him to hold his breath. Instead of napkins, after dinner my parents would send us outside to play with the neighbors' woolly dog. To escape our poverty a couple of my relatives left the respectable world and went into crime. I have an uncle who has a wonderful gift of being able to find things before other people lose them.

But, my trip was good, the men were great, the snow's melted on my front lawn, my son is handsome, my daughter is stunning and talented, my wife is beautiful, and my congregation is the best. Now tell me, how in the world can I maintain a world class snit when God keeps ruining it by blessing me???

Thoughts Before the Road

2006-10-12T08:11:00.000-07:00

I hit the road tomorrow to do a men's retreat for the Elmwood Church of Christ in West Lafayette, Indiana. Before I do... some random bits...

It snowed this morning. I'm not kidding. Our "high" today is supposed to be 39. While the snow -- which came down furiously for a half hour -- has mostly melted in the sunshine, this reminds us of several things: we are not in charge of the planet or its weather, none of us are using enough aerosols, and global warming is a myth -- at least in Michigan.

My mother is doing much better. Thank you for your prayers. Dad is scheduled to leave for Guyana two weeks from Monday.

Since the men's retreat is at a camp, and I'm thinking of my parents, I keep thinking of growing up and that leads to thoughts of...

Food. My mother is an Irish cook, which means she can't. She is a lovely lady, but fact is we had leftovers for sixteen years. The original meal was never located. My wife does wonderful things with leftovers. She throws them out.

School. I'm not sure why I studied the least helpful subjects all the way through school, but I AM proud that I can speak Esperanto like a native. My higher doctorate is in "psychoneuroimmunology" which means "there are no jobs in this. What were you thinking?" My dad wanted me to have all the educational opportunities he never had, so he sent me to a girls school. I always wanted to be an intellectual until I realized an intellectual is just someone who thinks they found something more interesting than sex. And a Ph.D? Yea, I got a couple, but face facts. A Ph.D. is just what they award you for transferring bones from one graveyard to another. (Originality is undetected plagarism) We had a tough school. We had our own coroner. One of my best papers was from the fifth grade and titled, "What I Want To Be IF I Grow Up."

Haircuts. I got a bad one. I'm not sure why or how it happened. It seems that my barber is a world expert on everything except the cutting of hair. People tell me that the difference between a good haircut and a bad haircut is two weeks. Nope. This is going to take longer. I've seen Number Two pencil erasers that looked better. Good thing I've already got a girlfriend.

House and Home. My wife keeps things awfully neat and clean. I'm not sure I understand that. I learned something in the years I lived alone: if you don't clean your house for two months, it really doesn't get any dirtier. I've also learned that children brighten up a home... because they never turn off any lights. When I was a kid, our family never talked. We communicated by putting up Ann Landers columns on the refrigerator. My father never took me to the zoo. He told me that if they wanted me, they'd come and get me. I'm doing much better now. Although I'm just 49, I'm reading at a 55 year old level.

Marriage. When I first saw Kami it was like all my birthdays came at once. I agree with Groucho Marx when he said that anybody who can see right through women is missing a lot. I am still wowed by her. When I first kissed her, I kissed her like I was trying to clear the drains. It is still hard to keep my enthusiasm in check. Sometimes we have words, but I never get to use mine. That's probably for the best.

Music. My sister was a town and country soprano of the sort best used to augment grief at a funeral. She wanted me to learn to appreciate the higher forms of music, but I confess that classical music, to me, is something that one listens to in vain hope that it will eventually stumble upon a tune. I went to an opera and admit that it is impossible to fully appreciate it after hearing it only once. I also admit that I will not sit through it a second time. I listen to my XM radio a lot. It has a channel for the top twenty records only. I listened to it and shuddered thinking, if these were the top twenty, what must the bottom fifty sound like? Of course, I should talk. My singing is best described as something between the sound of a rat drowning, a lavatory flushing, and a hyena devouring her afterbirth in the Appalachian Mountains under the light of a full moon.

Until later.... I've miles to go before I sleep...

Just another day at Rochester...

2006-10-09T06:29:00.000-07:00

I love the Rochester Church. Let me share some moments from yesterday as an illustration. We are a congregation of 1200+/- members with an attendance around 1000 (this is a VERY mobile congregation). Our building is thirty miles north of downtown Detroit and we draw from a twenty mile circle with a few driving nearly an hour to get here.

Yesterday morning we had, as usual, three services, back to back. At each of them I put out small woven baskets up front. I told them about Sam (not his real name). Sam walked into his trailer home and found his 19 year old son had commited suicide with a shotgun. The sheriff's department immediately called us. This church has that kind of reputation -- we are on the first call list for any disaster or need. Any officer who needs counseling comes to us. If someone is homeless due to fire, domestic abuse, or financial tragedy, they come to us. Our elders have assistants -- Care Ministers -- who lept into action within minutes, establishing contact with Sam, guiding him through his pain and emotion, arranging for him to have a place to stay, and navigating the government agencies that get involved in these things. (God bless you, Tom and Heather!)

Sam has attended Rochester several times but he is not a member. That didn't stop us. He wants to move up north (yes, people in Michigan can still speak of "up north") to be with his surviving family members and get a new start. The expenses for cleanup of the trailer and his son's cremation have already been taken care of. On Sunday morning I directed the peoples' attention to the woven baskets and asked them to contribute a dollar or two as they saw fit just so that Sam could have a few weeks of cushion as he looks for work.

During the lesson, songs, and prayers people broke out of the crowd to come up and put money in the baskets. They couldn't wait for the end of services when we traditionally give to special needs. THOUSANDS were raised for Sam. Our benevolence team will give him a big chunk of it now and hold the rest in reserve for his future needs.

I love this church.

At third service, I called up Pete Grant. He is heading up Soul Space, a new ministry we have, targeting the pierced, tattooed, broken, addicted, and fringe people of Oakland and Macomb counties. Pete was trained in the ministry but left it after two horrible experiences. He is pony-tailed, tattooed and pierced. He hangs out with others of the same ilk... and he loves God. He thought he would never find a place he could serve the Lord as the church rarely accepts freaks (his own term). We do. In fact, we commissioned him and four more like him to reach out to others in their group with the gospel.

Our first act with Pete and Soul Space is just beginning. They are securing a storefront where they will have a Christian Tattoo parlor -- no kidding. It is called Sacred Ink and will be a place where people come not only for tattoos but also for a safe, clean, caring environment where people are treated with dignity and God is hallowed. They are already making waves in the area and the buzz has begun. Whispers can be heard that there is a church that actually loves these people! Soon we want to have a coffee shop and music venue for them. Two of our Soul Space guys formed a blues performance group called Bar12. As an afficianado of blues for years, I can honestly say they are the best. Their CD comes out in a few weeks and we will have a benefit concert for Soul Space here at our building on November 18th. We are fully prepared to be overrun by the freaky and the fried that night. Even though we are still an acapella congregation that is about 80% white and largely middle class, we are not so arrogant as to think God only loves people like us.

We stopped services three times yesterday. In the first service we stopped to pray over an elder and his wife who are headed to Albania to teach the gospel. They just got back from Brazil and Cambodia and Finland and... you get the point. In the second service, "Sam" was there and the people left their pews and formed one huge circle around him to pray for him. In the third we gathered all the Soul Space people, put them in the middle of the family room (what we call the auditorium) and prayed for them.

While third service was going on there were two other large meetings in our building. The Children's Ministry Team was meeting to plan our future work for God's little ones and the Teen Ministry Leaders were meeting with parents to help them raise their children in the Lord and to form strong bonds of fellowship between the teens.

I love this church. We let God and kingdom matters break into our routine. Our elders are strong, faithful, and fearless men. Our members are ready to give, ready to serve, and not so hung up on process and procedure that they forget that God loves people and wants us to help them. The weather is already turning with some saying we will get a snow flake or two this weekend. I hate the cold, I hate the dark days, and I hate the wind that howls around my house... but I love this church. I love seeing Jesus at work in this place.

I want to be Catherine

2006-10-06T10:32:00.000-07:00

I know heroes. I have lived among them for years. I've known police officers, federal agents, soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines since I could walk. Firefighters, EMTs and emergency room doctors and nurses are in my immediate circle of friends. I wish I could be more like them, but I don't want to BE them.

I want to be my mother. Electa Catherine Kee Mead, known most of her life as "Kitty" and in recent years as "Catherine" is my hero. Born into a sharecropping family of displaced Irishmen in West Virginia, Catherine was a beautiful child, inside and out. When my father met her, he was in the Navy and she was engaged to someone else. He swept her off her feet (funnily enough, this is still very hard for me to imagine...) and they were married shortly thereafter. They bore three children and adopted three more. I was their last born child. After my two older sisters were born the doctors informed her that she would be unable to bear any more children. She disagreed, saying that she needed to have a son so that she could give him to the Lord. Like Hannah, she prayed and, like Hannah, once I was born I was marked for the Lord's service -- like it or not!

My mother had surgery last Monday. It was a difficult surgery, but they assure us she will be fine. She has had a hard life. I could take a lot of cheap shots here and comment on how hard it must be to live with my father for over 55 years, but I'll resist the impulse. For now. Instead, I will remind you that this is a 75 year old woman who has spent a lifetime walking down jungle paths, sleeping on hard dirt floors, taking falls on icy streets in Siberia and Ukraine, and sipping cups of watered down tea in drafty living rooms in Scotland. For the sake of the Kingdom, she has worn her body out.

And yet... she remains the single most optimistic and the sweetest person I have ever known. Physically small (I call her my Pocket Mom), her huge, beautiful eyes still radiate grace and welcome to all who see her. When she came out of surgery and slowly woke up, she was battling pain, anesthesia, and a morphine drip and yet -- as the nurses all said in awe -- she smiled at each person who came near and asked them how they were doing, complimenting them on their hard work and thanking them for their attention.

She never asks for anything. She gives, instead. There are many, many things in her life that should have caused her to turn bitter, depressed, or morose but she refuses. Not all of her children are in the faith. Some have turned to, not just sinful, but evil ways of life. She prays for them daily and lives in hope that they can yet be reached by the gospel, even if they won't accept her calls. While she recovers, her greatest concern is that she be well enough to travel the hour and a half it takes them to get to the small church across the river in Kentucky where my father preaches every Sunday (when he is in the country). When I suggest that bowel surgery might mean she needs to stay home for a couple of weeks and give church meetings a miss my suggestions are -- graciously and with love -- swept aside. Of COURSE she is going to go to church!

Steady in her faith, absolutely fierce in her love, gentle and sweet beyond description. I want to be my mother.

She is my hero. Once, when I was a boy, a neighborhood bully who was so overgrown for his age he qualified for group rates for insurance and travel purposes came to attack me. That wasn't hard to do as I wasn't exactly combat-ready at the age of five. I remember being knocked down and feeling him climb on me, jumping up and down on my stomach. The next thing I remember is a banshee's cry and his head changing shape as a broom connected with it. He dropped like a rock and then scrambled to his feet as she pursued him out of the yard. I never saw him again.

But I saw her in a new light. She's my hero.

On Monday, after a painful, difficult surgery, the nurses pulled me aside and said, "We see a lot of angels here, but all of them sprout horns under anesthesia and when they are in pain. But not Catherine." I told them, "That's because this is who she really is."

I'm not Catherine yet, but I want to be.

Always Faithful

2006-10-03T09:20:00.000-07:00

A post of mine, back on September 18th, blathered about how squirrely people are about things and about how they don't deal well with reality. In that post I mentioned a couple of impressive things about Bush... and that set off a couple of readers. Regular readers of this column know that I am not a Republican or a Democrat. I am not a fan of our president, nor did I care much for the last one. Jeremy, of The Observationist, wrote a couple of times and so did someone known only as Am.

Let me be clear on this: I write this without sarcasm or irony. I believe that Jeremy and Am are probably warm, intelligent, and wonderful human beings. I KNOW that is true about Jeremy because he wrote me a personal email that can only be described as gracious and kind. Am seems very, very sensitive about some things, but aren't we all? He/she is probably someone I would enjoy spending time with were we able to meet face to face.

A couple of things they wrote need to be answered to be fair to them and to others. When I responded to Am that my son and I would remain Semper Fidelis, Always Faithful, he/she wrote: "Always faithful to what? To Jesus (highly recommended and a wonderful thing by the way)? To GWB? To the Republican party? To the war in Iraq/on terror? To the Marine Corps? To despising Clinton and/or democrats?"

Jeremy wrote several things, but I will mention just one. "I disagree with you that your son is fighting for my freedom to dissent."

Remember what I wrote earlier. Jeremy is a good man and means well, but this comment needs to be addressed. Jeremy, you don't get to choose what my son is fighting for. It is presumptuous in the extreme to disagree that he is fighting for your freedom to dissent when you do not know him, his comrades, or what is in their hearts. You might be surprised to find out how many Marines are democrats (and more than a few are running for political office as Democrats right now). If you ask the average grunt why he is there, the name of GWB will not come up. He will speak of honor, courage and commitment. They will speak of horrors that must end. But, mostly, they will say they are there because they need to be there. You don't have to like it, accept it, or understand it, but don't tell them why they are fighting or what they are fighting for. THEY get to decide that.

As for Am... you asked "always faithful to what?" Fair question. Here is the answer.

Always faithful to Jesus and to the Word of God, both the passages on peace and those on war, both those that require picking up the sword and those that require laying it down; those on earning money and those on not storing it up on earth (that's right. I have no retirement plan, no Social Security. Nothing), those on giving of your money, time and life in service... you get the idea. Always faithful.

Always faithful to my wife of over 28 years. If she needs me, she knows -- absolutely knows -- that I will be there for her, stopping any activity, canceling any appointment, making any journey, to get to her. She knows that I will always love her, care for her, protect her, and cherish her. Always. Always faithful.

Always faithful to my children -- my lovely daughter and my brave son. Always.

Always faithful to any within my sphere of influence. If they are being harmed, I will step in. At my age and in my current health/lack of health situation, stepping in might be fatal. I'm not the 3rd degree black belt I once was. I kid and tell people that if someone yells "Attack!" I might have one! But I will step up and step out because that is what faithful men have been called to do. We run TO the sound of guns. We wrap our arms around those whom others want to destroy. We will do it whether or not others approve; even if they impune our motives. We will do it because it is right. Always faithful.

Always faithful to my brothers and sisters in the faith. Every year I speak at churches so conservative that they use only one cup for the Lords Supper, have no Bible classes, make the women wear hats in their buildings, and refuse to eat in the building. I also will speak to United Methodist and Catholic churches, Independent Christian Churches, civic groups, and youth events -- regardless of who is putting them on. I do it because the people who love God -- even when I strongly disagree with some of their beliefs and practices -- are precious and should be treated with dignity and grace. They should be served and loved, not shunned and boycotted. A lot of people on the left and right get mad at me every year because of where I've gone and whom I've embraced, but that's all right. I love them, too. Always faithful.

Jeremy, you have graciously shown me that you are my brother and that you mean me no harm or offence. I believe you, admire you, and accept you as a friend. Am, I would do the same for you. Regardless of where we stand on this or that political/social/financial issue, I promise you that I will treat you with kindness and love. Honor, Courage, and Commitment are core values, not just for my son and his Marine friends. They are my promise to you.

Always faithful.

Can You Imagine?

2006-09-26T08:02:00.000-07:00

An article in Outreach magazine prompted my staff and me to think about how to re-imagine the church. In the first century, "kingdom" language was highly effective. The people had been waiting on their Messiah for centuries. Politics and religion were intertwined in confusing and dangerous ways. In their own homes, but occupied by a hostile power and unable to find solace in a corrupted religion (the high priesthood was up for sale and had been for some time), they longed for a king, a hero, a chevalier to ride in and save the day.

When an American hears "king" or "kingdom" they do not have the same response. They think of kings as doddering old guys cutting ribbons in Europe or perhaps a relic of tribal times on some island in the South Pacific. "Kingdom" doesn't resonate with us either, as we consider ourselves part of a democracy or republic.

If Jesus were to announce his kingdom today, how would he re-cast that vision? How would he re-imagine the church? The answer is -- he did! The first six of the following list comes from Brian Mavis' column in Outreach. The rest came from the staff at Rochester, and we are working on more. The comments on each are my own. We use these comments to spark creative use of video and illustrations. What if we were to re-imagine the church as:

1. A party? (think Cana of Galilee, or Matthew 22:1-13) Think of how effective the Geico gecko commercials are as he invites people to his insurance company as if it were an exclusive club, a party, a place for special people.

2. A hospital? (Mark 2:13-17) Watch hospital commericals. Some are designed to terrify (I'm thinking the Beaumont commercials here in Detroit that make you fear that your every twinge might be fatal and end with the breathless line "Do you have a Beaumont doctor?") but most are designed to show warmth, service, peace, and help.

3. A treasure hunt? (Matthew 13:44-46) "All right, contestants, in fifteen minutes, God is coming. We have hidden grace in the room. Who will find it before He shows up?" Many other examples leap to mind. Think Indiana Jones or The Da Vinci Code and you get the idea.

4. More like a fishing trip? (Matthew 13:47-52) Think of the preparation, effort, patience, and burdens happily borne on each trip, regardless of the size of the return.

5. More like a gym? (1 Timothy 4:7,8) Blow up muscle suits, anyone? What efforts are made to get in shape? How long does it take? Are you ever done? What kinds of community draw you back to your gym?

6. A search and rescue team? (Luke 15:3-7; 19:10) Or any of the parables concerning searching for the lost pearl, lost boy, etc. Use this in combination with a blessing for firefighters, EMTs, etc. Movies such as Ladder 49 and World Trade Center come to mind.

7. The dream of God? (Psalm 139, Jeremiah 1) What are God's dreams for us? What is in our baby book? What is He saying about us to the crowd of witnesses?

8. The revolution of God? (I preached this July 4th weekend at Rochester and it is available online) How revolutionary was/is Jesus' teachings? What happens to our sense of place, identity, and purpose when we read those passages anew that we formally explained away? (think "lay not up for yourself treasures on earth" and compare that to commercials that challenge us to retire well, stay medicated, etc.)

9. The mission of God? Movies such as The Mission and The Blues Brothers come to mind. What happens when God's dreams and mission takes over your life? What happened to Paul? How was his life turned upside down?

10. The network of God? Look at the various jobs, ages, races, and neighborhoods in your congregation. Use pushpins in large maps to show how God has located us at the critical junctions of our area geographically, economically, and by trade or occupation. What are the ramifications of this? How can we build our network to strengthen our fellowship as we bring others in?

11. The dance of God? Look at David dancing as the Ark was brought into the city. God taught bees how to dance (along with many other animals and insects). Survey the word "dance" in scripture and note how it is almost always mentioned positively, especially when the dance is to God. How can our worship, life and mission be changed if we look upon them as a dance to God?

12. As a gathering? (Matthew:16ff) We are a Gathering but also a Sent Community. We are gathered to GO! We are not gathered to sit and listen on Sundays. What aspects of the Gathering are attractive to us and the culture in which we live? What about the Sending?

13. As a Covenant? A membership covenant, or a marriage covenant. What is our responsibility, our part of the covenant between us and God? Instead of asking to be served by the church, what are our obligations as a part of the covenant between humanity and Deity.

14. A center for renewal and resurrection. Similar to the hospital idea, but with much more room for dramatic impact. Use those in our fellowship with stories of overcoming addictions, sinful lives, or personal tragedy.

We are still working on these. Some have already been presented in sermon form to the congregation here. What others can you imagine... or re-imagine?

Sunday Afternoon Thoughts

2006-09-24T12:41:00.000-07:00

Allow me to ramble...

Today's worship was a blessing. I did a special class (part one of two) on women in ministry and worship and survived without needing Kevlar or 2nd Marine backup. At the end of my sermon in the third AM service, named Mosaic, I called up a man who has been attending for months now, Kenn Urban, and introduced him to the assembly. He told me last week that he wanted to be baptized today. Several family members came to witness the baptism. We brought them up to the stage so that they could be within feet of him. The whole assembly stood and applauded enthusiastically as Kenn entered the Kingdom. Outstanding.

This last week has seen me in Brownwood, Texas and then at the Round Lake encampment in Ohio. I've always loved Texas even though I've only spoken at two events there. The family seminar went well and the people were wonderful. I was most impressed with two things: on a chilly (for Texas) Tuesday morning, 7AM, fifty or so young men came out to eat breakfast and hear a message from me before they went to work. That's a good crowd! The other most impressive thing? The love they have for the prisoners they serve in the local jail. They hold several classes for them weekly and stay in touch after they are released. The minister told me that in the drug dealing part of town everyone shouts out a greeting to him when they see him. That's cool. That's ministry.

At Round Lake, I wasn't sure what to expect. The church in Marion, Ohio runs the event and they are a wonderful group of Christians. Their minister, Russell Howard, has a booming voice and a personality to match. He is a gracious and kind servant of the Lord. Of course, anytime you try to do something good there will be those who attack so he had to endure barbs and bans after inviting me and a couple of other speakers for the weekend. I volunteered to withdraw but he wouldn't hear of it. The event was uplifting, situated in the great outdoors, full of fellowship, singing and some very solid teaching. Thanks, Russ and the Marion church.

As cool weather enters Michigan, I find myself growing wistful, missing those who have gone on before. I usually deal with these morbid, melancholy thoughts by turning to humor and one of my favorite forms of humor is what I call "granddad stories." They aren't true, mostly, but I like them. You might have heard one or two of these before.

I loved my grandfather. I played with him every week. Technically, he was dead, but my parents had him cremated and put his ashes in my Etch-A-Sketch.

Okay, okay... he IS dead and we DID cremate him. In fact, we think that might have been what did it.

Grandad was a tough man. He told us that he got that way by putting a teaspoonful of gunpowder on his porridge (oatmeal to you colonists) every morning. It must have worked. When he died he left four kids, twelve grandkids, fifteen great-grandkids and a twenty foot hole in the wall of the crematorium.

My other grandfather died in a tragic accident. He worked in a distillery and drowned in a vat of whiskey. We took some solace in the brave way he fought off the rescue squad for the entire day. Unfortunately, when we tried to collect insurance, the company wouldn't pay since he'd had the good grace to get out twice to go to the bathroom. When we cremated him it took a week to put out the flames.

I remember the last time I visited my grandmother (I had to go up to the attic anyway). Shortly afterward she collapsed. The doctor told us that her heart was still beating but her brain was dead. I started crying because it was the first time we'd had a Democrat in the family.

True story: my grandfather -- who would have voted for Hitler if he'd run as a Democrat -- told me that a Democrat had stolen some tools from his barn. I asked him how he knew the thief was a Democrat and he said, "If it'd been a Republican he would have taken the whole barn."

I can remember the joy of the first snow of the year. I would run to the door and bang on it, saying, "You remember the deal, you have to let me in now!"

Christmas was always a bummer. Dad said Santa Claus couldn't come to our house because we lived in a Crips neighborhood and Santa wore red. Just kidding. He'd really just go into the front yard on Christmas Eve and let off a shotgun, then come in the house and tell us Santa committed suicide so there'd be no presents this year. One year he gave my sister a box of broken glass and me a box of bandages and said, "Now you kids share."

My grandfather held a traditional Thanksgiving dinner a few years ago. He invited all his neighbors over, fed them a big meal, then killed them and took their land. Ah, memories.

Gotta quit, now. I have to go out to the garage and fix the lock on my car. I had two tickets to the Detroit Lions in there. Someone broke in and left three more tickets. Sigh....

Laughing In Ambush Alley

2006-09-21T10:04:00.000-07:00

I just flew in from Dallas yesterday (Me to pilot: "Sir, was that a landing or were we shot down?") and will head off to Ohio tomorrow to do a men's retreat. I won't take Northwest Airlines this time (company motto: "We're not happy until YOU'RE not happy") but will point my Hyundai southward into the low hills of eastern Ohio.

My wife bought me an XM radio several years ago and it is a life-saver. In my rental car in Texas I had to constantly twiddle the dials in search of a station to listen to. I don't listen to country and western because my life's going fairly well right now. I once considered being a country and western singer but I took a test and my self-esteem was too high. Probably for the best: I already knew four chords and it would have been a shame to waste one.

Settle down out there... I was listening to country music just the other day when the doorbell rang so I pulled the gun out of my mouth...

I don't mean to denigrate you country music lovers. And, by the way, country music lovers, "denigrate" means to insult or talk down to.

As I enter Ohio (state motto: "Attention K-mart shoppers") I will certainly see a State Trooper car sitting by the side of the road. They use radar so extensively in that state that people find their fresh chicken is completely cooked by the time they get it home from the store. I think cops cause more accidents than they prevent. C'mon, you see one, you immediately slam on the brakes, try to get your seat belt on, put your cereal bowl on the passenger seat, and hang up the phone. Have you ever noticed that there is always a cop car at the scene of an accident? Coincidence? Hmmmmm.

Maybe it's just age creeping up on me (or leaping upon me from the top of my dresser). I can now go into an antique stop and identify everything in there. I think my blood type has been discontinued. How old am I? I'm celebrating my 40th birthday in December. That will, of course, be ten years late, but that's the one I choose to celebrate. I used to be driven, but now I think I've pulled over, my train of thought has left me standing at the station, two weeks past my sell-by date.

But it isn't stopping me. I keep going on first to one place and then to another, even though I know I will get ambushed by those who consider themselves watchdogs of the faith... or who consider me an evil and unfaithful man. That seems to happen less often than it did ten years ago, but it still happens. My email will run hot some weeks from angry brothers and sisters whose conscience I have troubled.

I'm hoping that if we stay together long enough, we will learn to love each other. I try not to allow divisive thoughts to enter my thoughts, much less my doctrine. I even follow that rule when I do laundry. I don't separate things by color. I put them together and make them learn from their differences...

Life ambushes you. That's just a fact. I prefer to continue laughing as I walk down ambush alley. For example, I have decided it takes too much effort to work out so I just avoid walking by a mirror when I'm naked. I DID find one exercise class I liked. It's called Lamaze. You just do a lot of breathing and there's no reason to be embarassed about your gut; there are some enormous women in that room. Last year I tried a five mile race. I did terrible. I was last and the guy in front of me kept making fun of me. "How does it feel to be last?" he asked. I said, "I don't know. You tell me" and dropped out.

That'll show 'em. Life ambushes you sometimes, buddy.

The Certain Among the Strange

2006-09-18T14:40:00.000-07:00

There are times I think the entire world has disappeared down the rabbit hole into Alice in Wonderland territory.

The Pope reads a medieval poet's view that Islam breeds violence and evil. Muslims disagree with this so much they shoot a 60 year old nun who is helping the poor in a hospital (they cheer as she dies), they fire bomb several churches in Palestine (only two of which happen to be Catholic), jeer at worshippers at Catholic churches in London and Paris, holding up signs declaring the upcoming death of all Christians and Jews, and engage in violent marches and attacks worldwide. THAT'LL show the world the Pope was wrong to call Islam a violent faith!

Over one trillion dollars have been spent on the war on poverty. We have more poor people now. The solution, say the architects and supporters of the Great Society? Spend more money.

Huge sums of money are spent on public education. Our kids are failing and SAT scores are in free fall. The solution, says the educational monopoly, is spend more. Even when Bush doubles the amount of money given to education he is ridiculed for his parsimony.

Gore flunked out of divinity school. Bush's SAT scores were higher than Gore's and almost every one of the Democratic leadership. He has better degrees than many of them (but no law degree, so it doesn't count...) and has beaten them in two straight elections. But Bush is an idiot and his opponents are intellectual giants. Right.

Churches are dying as they guard their sacred bubble, their holy hour on Sunday. They see attendance falling and their children fleeing to other churches and their solution? Clamp down on any change! Stay the course!

Sigh.

I remember when my sweet wife and I were first married. She is now a well known interior designer and, frankly, I should have seen it coming. We were poor and rented an upper story one bedroom flat in an old, drafty house. The rooms were huge but we had only a few pieces of furniture. Kami would rearrange it all relentlessly. Everytime the phone rang at night, my shins were in for a bruising. This was back in the days before cordless phones so each phone (we had only one) was tethered by a short cord to a wall socket. Light switches were hard to locate at night so I would fall over and bang into all of our furniture as I tried to reach the phone.

How to stop this? I wondered. I didn't want to tell her to stop moving our stuff around because, well, I never have liked telling her what to do or seeming like I was correcting her. I needed something creative, something subtle. I came up with a solution at last...

I went into the bathroom and left the door open. I knew she would be walking down the hallway to the bedroom from the kitchen momentarily so I situated myself on my knees, hands folded in front of me as if I were in fervent prayer while facing the toilet. Eyes closed, I listened as she approached. She stopped just outside and said, "Patrick? What are you doing?"

I replied, "I'm just thanking the good Lord this thing's nailed down!"

In a down-the-rabbit-hole world, I am thrilled that there are some things nailed down. God loves us. There is a place prepared for us. We are saved by grace. He has promised to get us safely home.

"Jesus loves me, this I know..." That's nailed down. Yes!

Weird Travels

2006-09-13T06:44:00.000-07:00

A change of pace blog today....

Yesterday a man passed me in his Toyota Prius. He had a goatee, a smug look.... and a huge Harley Davidson sticker on his bumper. A Prius and a Harley... aren't those two natural enemies in the wild?

It's another dark, rainy day in Michigan; definitely fall weather. I find myself getting squirrelly at this time of year (okay, more squirrelly). I'll catch a fly, hold it over a globe, and say, "Dude! You're flying too high!" or run outside with a toothpick and throw it in the woods yelling, "You're home now!"

As our church kids went off to college I recalled my own first days at university. My grandmother wouldn't hear of me buying dorm furniture. She insisted on supplying stuff from her house. I had the only dorm room that looked like a set from Pirates of Penzance. Grandmom was a tough lady. She buried three husbands and we think two of them were only napping. I went to see her last week. Well, I had to go to the attic anyway... I paid for my first year of school by selling encyclopedias. Man, when the librarian found out about that...

I'm off to Brownwood, TX this weekend to do a three day family seminar. Weather.com tells me it will be in the high 90's while I'm there. Yikes. Am I not living a righteous life to avoid having to be in a hot place one day??? I hope my flight is better than the last one. I think I might have been sitting in Assistant Coach.

I had an argument with a lady recently who told me that God was a woman. I don't think she's right. I certainly HOPE she isn't because if she is, and I go to hell, I'll never know why.

Seeing Duncan getting ready to leave for the Corps makes me feel old. Maybe that's because I AM old. Our globe in grade school was flat. I watch my parents to see how they're doing as a preview of coming attractions. My mother has new teeth, her cataracts removed, and a new hearing aid. I told her we're going to fix her up a little more and then sell her. She didn't laugh. My grandmother did well -- lived to 88 years old and never used glasses. Drank right from the bottle.

I'm just asking -- did anyone else play Twister like we did? They'd lock me up in a closet and tell me a tornado was coming. At least it kept me from going to the family reunion. I love my family, but some of those branches needed cutting. And there's always that amateur geneologist there with the books and photos showing your lineage all the way back. That can be useful, true, as I learned one of our family customs was -- if someone is sitting too close to you on the branch, fling your poo at them. That seems helpful, somehow.

I don't want my son to get too physically involved with girls yet so I tell him that kissing is just swapping spit at the sweet end of thirty feet of intestines.

I want to diet and have a great body, but not as much as I want dessert. I found a solution -- I go on two diets at the same time, because one diet will never supply enough food...

I'm off to a staff meeting now. What are the odds I'll get serious and pastoral in time? In a world where a Prius can have a Harley sticker... why not celebrate the strange?

Where Were You?

2006-09-10T13:09:00.000-07:00

On September 11, 2001 I was playing golf with friends from my congregation. We were in Conway, SC playing The Witch. While still on the front nine a man rode up to us in a golf cart and said, "Someone's flown planes into the Twin Towers and attacked the Pentagon. They're evacuating Washington!" And then he drove off. We wondered if he was drunk, but since it was still before mid-morning that would have been unusual even for the Myrtle Beach area.

The men I was playing with asked me if I thought it was true. I said I didn't, but that if it were true, it was probably "that guy named bin Laden." I already knew that name because of various acts of terror thrown against us that he planned, orchestrated, or supported. Still -- we were shocked when we returned to the clubhouse just in time to see the replay of the second plane hitting the tower. Shortly afterwards, the towers fell.

I got home to my wife. My daughter had called me when I was still on the course. She was getting my son -- her brother -- out of school. At that time we didn't know if schools would be safe. The desire to get home was very strong; I remember that most of all. I walked in and hugged my wife and kids as they stared at the TV screen. Nobody knew how many attacks would be launched or where the next one would be. I got calls asking if we should gather at the church building. My opinion was "no, stay home with your families and don't give the terrorists another target by gathering believers in one place." I'm still not sure I made the right call.

Some of our neighbors and a couple of our church members had made it very plain in previous months that they considered our family political and evolutionary throwbacks. We owned guns and competed in shooting competitions and that made us right wing loonies. Suddenly, those same people came to our house. Their husbands were trapped in far-off airports and nobody knew when, or if, they would be able to come home. Fear gripped the neighborhood as it did the nation. They came to us and asked us if they could stay with us, under our protection. Of course, we waved them in and comforted them. One particularly nervous woman asked, "Should I buy a gun?" I told her, "No. We've got you covered."

Another asked me how we should feel, what we should do next. I responded, "One thing must be understood. Fear is not an option. We do not and we will not fear these men. They must fear us." My young son, already a strong young man, stood silently nearby, eyes free of fear or confusion. It was clear: we were at war, open war.

While politicians play "gotcha" games and toss empty attacks and promises back and forth the airways, we will continue to pray for the soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen. We will continue to pray for those who wake up every day with the knowledge that a loved one was taken from them by terrorism or war. We will remain vigilant -- remembering that Jesus said WATCH and pray. Duncan -- whose Gaelic name is Donnachad (try saying it DAWN-ach-eg), meaning "dark warrior" -- has raised his hand and sworn an eight year commitment to the US Marine Corps. The US and Marine Corps flags fly from our front porch.

We know they are out there. We know they are near us. We know they want to kill us. But we will not let them defeat our faith or our commitment to Christian service. We will continue to grow the Rochester Church, serve this area in various charitable works, and love our neighbors. We are well aware that this world is not, and will never be, heaven. We will not live with a Pollyanna or pie-in-the-sky attitude that says "if we just talked to them, they'd like us!" We will walk wisely, redeeming the time.

And we will trust that "the battle belongs to the Lord."

Dirty (Watch)Dogs

2006-09-08T07:57:00.000-07:00

While we are on this topic, one of the sadder incidents I have seen unfold was brought back to me a couple of years ago... and every month since. I will not mention this man's name, for I still love him and want him to come to a fuller and truer understanding of God, grace, and simple right and wrong. I would never want to humiliate him or drag him through the mud.

In the 70's and 80's he strode through the Church of Christ like a conservative Colossus. He wrote dozens of books and tracts and it is probably not an exaggeration to say that they made their way into nearly every preacher's office and tract-rack in our brotherhood. The books slammed liberalism in the church and in our culture. Favorite targets were abortion, divorce, remarriage, and sexual sin. When I came back to the States in the mid-80's, our church in Ohio had him in twice to do meetings for us. It must be said that he did a good job hammering his themes again and again. I liked him. While I might not have always agreed with him and I certainly wouldn't have preached in the style he used, I considered him a man who was offering to God what he had, and doing so as honorably as he could.

He even headed up one of our major schools of preaching and made sure that it was formed in his image and likeness. Things were going good for him... until his wife became ill and was taken to the hospital. Tests revealed that she had a serious condition caused by a sexually transmitted disease. Problem? She had only been with one man, her husband, a man widely known as a watchdog for the faith. He -- let's call him "Bob" since that wasn't his name -- was preaching in another town. As usual, his subject was on the sin of fornication, adultery, divorce, remarriage, abortion. etc. and he had two full tables of books for sale in the lobby at the end of each message. When his elders asked the church to locate him and tell him that his wife was in the hospital they were told that that was impossible, for Bob's wife was with him at the hotel. Of course, it wasn't his wife, but it turned out that "Bob" had lots of women in lots of towns, sometimes even taking them to his meetings in the evening and introducing them as his wife!

His church called for him to repent. He gave -- according to his elders -- a generic statement and then disappeared. When I got the news, I was stunned into disbelief. I called his elders and the head of the school of preaching to make sure that what I had heard was a lie. Sadly, tragically, they confirmed that the stories were true. "Bob" divorced his wife, left his family, found another wife, and moved on.

Two years or so ago I got a copy of The Christian Chronicle -- a fine paper, by the way and one I recommend. In it was an ad asking people to go to a website that would name false teachers in the brotherhood. Imagine my shock when I went there and found that "Bob" had resurfaced in a little town in Arizona. I called his old church and school and asked if he had ever repented and been brought back into fellowship. They said, "No." In fact, they went much further and told me more than I ever wanted to know about how "Bob" had treated his family and the church. He was, they assured me, out of fellowship with them.

On his website, there is no mention of this. A history of his work is given, but it is completely sanitized. I could accept this if he just wanted to start again and find a way to serve the Lord, but when that service is (as it seems to me) entirely made up of naming and attacking preachers he doesn't agree with... his own history and the fact that he is out of fellowship with the churches that knew him would seem to be salient points that people should know.

I grieve for him. I pray for him and want only for God to bless him by leading him out of the prision he has placed himself in.

You might be surprised at how often it is this way. Those who spend their time throwing rocks at others (remember John 8?) are usually the ones with the greatest sins, the greatest moral failures. I know. I used to be a rock thrower. I knew the Bible forwards and backwards, but it didn't touch my heart. I was an expert at the law and could get offended and launch into "righteous indignation" at the drop of a jot or tittle... but I was unloving, unclean, and untruthful. I pray that "Bob" will come to Jesus before he does much more harm. I doubt that he will come upon this little narrative, but, "Bob", if you do -- it isn't too late. Those of us who have been given time and grace and redemption want the same for you. May God have mercy on all of us.

Libel in the Name of Christ

2006-09-06T08:02:00.000-07:00

Here we go again. I am used to being "written up" [for those outside of our religious circles, that means having articles published against me, my congregation, or something I've said]. Sometimes, I deserve it. I make no claim to always being right about everything. What pains me, however, is that most of the time I am written up for the most bizarre things that don't have a basis in truth.

I remember well the time some churches in West Virginia circulated a letter attacking my then congregation (Madigan Avenue, in Morgantown) for allowing my wife to lead songs in worship and teach an adult class. Your religious tribe may allow such things, but that's beside the point. The point is: my wife is such a shy and quiet woman that she would sooner die than say six words in public. The "charge" was inaccurate and, frankly, silly. One of the men who circulated that letter around also wrote a (self published) book(let) detailing what he claimed were my teachings accompanied by a lot of exclamation points.

Here is where some heroes enter the story. I put up with that for over a year until my elders heard about it. They immediately told me to "let not my heart be troubled." As one said, "Your job is to preach and teach. Our job is to make sure you get to do your job untroubled." They called the man and told him to desist, challenging him on the fact that he had never come to me about any of his charges. His response? Since I spoke publicly, there was no requirement to come to me privately. Huh? When he refused to stop, my elders took a road trip the next Sunday. Even though he preached in another State, they were there when he stood up to preach! They went to his elders who promptly ran away saying something to the effect that what their preacher did had nothing to do with them, they didn't want to know anything.

That slowed that particular preacher down, but others popped up, trying to make their name by destroying mine or any of a large number of other speakers and preachers in the church. While they are not qualified to be elders in their own congregation, they try to become bishops over many by their websites, publications, and rants.

Yet, that isn't what upsets me. What upsets me is the fact that these brethren are doing this -- lying, gossiping, libeling -- in the Name of Christ and that sullies His glorious Name, dilutes the testimony of the gospel, and breaks the fellowship He died to create. Want to criticize me or challenge me? Go ahead, for I might very well deserve it. I have been wrong so many times I have gotten rather good at it! I need correction and my elders and friends supply it with love and gentleness. I am grateful for their help, their guidance.

I have only been "fired" from a speaking engagement once (although it has been threatened several times). The organizers of a rally day for a children's home saw a program where I spoke at an event where another speaker in the church, with whom they disagreed, spoke. It didn't matter that I never saw the man, had never met him, and was never questioned about where I stood on disputable matters... I was guilty by geography! At least they called to tell me, and I appreciate that.

Yesterday I got a notice from a place I am to speak later this year. One of the congregational supporters of the event has pulled their money and banned their men from coming because, they say, we support instrumental music on our website. The organizer checked and -- no, it isn't there. Now what? Put aside for the moment, please, whether or not that is an issue that should divide brothers... shouldn't someone have checked with us first?

I promptly volunteered to be removed from the event if that would restore unity and peace. I don't like traveling and public speaking has always been a terrible chore... so if I go it will be for the cause of Christ and if I stay behind, it will be for the cause of Christ.

And those brothers who dislike me, who have libeled this congregation, and who have broken God's law by not coming to us first? I love them. I support them in their kingdom work. If they ever need financial help, if they ever have a health crisis, or if their families ever experience breakup, division, or death, I hope I hear about it so that I can go and help them, love them, and pray with them.

For I used to be one of them. God help me -- I was worse than they are. The Lord gave me time and forgave me, so how could I be angry with them or wish them anything other than blessings and joy?

Island Adventures!

2006-09-02T17:45:00.000-07:00

It wasn't exactly "Pirates of the Caribbean" but I just got back from a couple of day's worth of island adventures. I was invited to speak at a conference/annual meeting of the FBI National Academy up on Mackinac Island.

Mackinac (for you non-Michigan types, it is pronounced 'mack-in-aw.' I think it's from an Indian word meaning 'unable to spell phonetically) is reached via ferry from the lower peninsula town of Mackinaw City or the upper peninsula town of St. Ignace. People from the UP, by the way, refer to those of us in the lower section of the State as "trolls" because we live under the bridge -- the magnificent Mackinac Bridge linking the two.

Mackinac is known for the Grand Hotel (featured in the old Christopher Reeve movie "Somewhere in Time"), for the fact that cars are not allowed on the island, and for the fudge shops that litter the place. On an island only 8 miles in circumference you can find 17 fudge shops. This is one man who refuses to complain about that... The horse drawn carriages, taxis ans shuttles are everywhere and teams of workers shovel their.. uh... exhaust constantly. Say what you will about the evils of cars, but at least their exhaust goes up, up and away.

The men and women of law enforcement could not have been more gracious. They treated my wife and son as celebrities. Many of them leapt forward to give Duncan their business cards, identifying themselves as former Marines who stood ready to help him in his career in the Corps. After a day and a bit on the island it came time for me to give my talk. I felt like I was cheating them. I wasn't charging them for my time, expenses, or the talk, but they were paying for our hotel room and suppers and that couldn't have been cheap. Plus, I was the last talk on the day -- an after dinner speaker, no less -- and they didn't get around to me until 8:30. The event was to end at 9:00 so there wasn't much time to say what I wanted to say. Fact is, with four pages of notes, I didn't get past the first one.

Not only that, but twenty or so of them had heard me before but the Lieutenant who asked me to join them on the island asked me to repeat that same talk. I hope they know I have more than one! Regardless, I pressed on, gave them 25 minutes of one-liners, fun, and reminders that they are loved and appreciated by we non-badge bearing types.

I sincerely hope it was of some benefit to them. I admire them and rely on them every day. I couldn't travel, speak, or live as I do without their constant vigilence and noble service. God bless them...

In fact... that leads me to this. If you've read this far, please consider this: the Rochester Church is planning a special service of blessing for law enforcement officers, firefighters, and other first responders. It will probably be in early Spring. We plan to fill our building and offer them prayers, expressions of support and love, as well as anything else we can come up with that will let them know our appreciation is real. We have already offered them our building anytime they need to have an event, class, or just a place to stop for awhile and rest.

Create a sanctuary in your church building for first responders. Keep a coffee pot going for them and a quiet room for them to rest, read, or pray. Start a yearly tradition of an evening of blessing (plus, perhaps, a remembrance of any who fell in the line of duty that year). Read Romans 13:1-6 to your small group, Bible class, or worship service and ask for prayers for those who stand in that thin blue line between us and darkness.

As beautiful as Mackinac Island is (and it IS beautiful), the most beautiful things I saw this week were the true and gentle hearts of those who wear the badge. God bless them all.

Death By Good Intentions

2006-08-28T07:41:00.000-07:00

Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring in 1962. One of the targets of her book was the chemical DDT, commonly used to kill mosquitos, effectively wiping out malaria. In the US, DDT had been used since 1939. It was shipped overseas during WW2 and proved itself effective in killing head, body, and crab lice as well as mosquitos. When the chemical was shared with Europe, cases of malaria plummeted and hundreds of thousands of lives were saved.

After Carson's book, where she blamed DDT for thinning the eggs of birds, thereby causing their deaths and eventual extinction, the EPA carried out hearings to determine if DDT was safe or not. It was found to not be carcinogenic, but was declared carcinogenic anyway by William Ruckelshaus, EPA administrator. No test ever done has shown DDT to cause cancer in humans, but Ruckelshaus was on an anti-DDT mission. The year before this hearing, the National Academy of Sciences declared that we owed a great debt to DDT and that "in little more than two decades, DDT has prevented 500 million human deaths..."

But the birds and nature must be saved... even at the cost of human life, and so DDT was banned. Further studies showed that even the thinning of bird's eggshells wasn't due to DDT but to a calcium deficient diet... but DDT was banned and that was that. One million people a year die in Africa alone due to malaria -- preventable deaths that occur because of the good intentions of those who wanted to save the birds.

Malaria is coming back to the US. Maps of the disease show it once again moving into Europe and North America. It is still rare, but the rate of increase indicates that we will have a serious -- and fatal -- problem with malaria and other mosquito borne illnesses within twenty five years. Will we overturn the ban now that it has been found to be a safe and effective chemical; one that has no carcinogenic effects or deleterious environmental effects? Hard to say.

Remember the airbags mandated in the eighties and early nineties? They were too powerful and it was against the law to turn them off so they ended up killing and injuring about the same number of children they were installed to save.

Remember banning guns? The United Kingdom tried it and now gun crime is going up 10-40% a year (there are three official, governmental offices for the reporting of crime and each has a different percentage!). Australia banned almost all guns and their murder and robbery rate has jumped. For the first time in history, the rate of murder, robbery, and hot burglary (that is a burglary committed while the homeowners are present) in England is higher than in the US. In the case of hot burglary, it is nearly twice our rate (again, one agency in the UK says it is 4x our rate). Banning guns didn't make the society safer; it turned it over to the wolves. It seems that no one noticed that nearly every case of public shooting was stopped by other men with guns.

We saw hungry children and families who had a hard time making it financially and our hearts went out to them. But, rather than opening our wallets, we demanded politicians take money from other people to give to those we cared about... and then give us some... and then some more. Now the entitlement mentality is so huge that overhauling the tax code, stopping the plague of unwed mothers children abandoned to live wild on the streets, or teaching self reliance is an almost hopeless cause.

All of these were caused by good intentions. God cautions all of us who want to make rules for others, to place barriers or laws where He did not, or to consider ourselves "teachers" and exert authority over others that such is dangerous and has far reaching consequences. "The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who exercise authority among them call themselves Benefactors. But you are not to be like that..." (Luke 22:25,26)

[for more info on the DDT ban and other junk science, check out Junk Science Judo by Steven Milloy (plus his website at www.junkscience.com) or the excellent The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science by Tom Bethell]

Handy Tips!

2006-08-23T06:48:00.000-07:00

Ever read Dante's "Inferno"? It is a chronicle of a journey through the seven circles of hell, each more horrible than the last. Many do not know about the lost chapter of "Inferno" describing an central core circle. In it are those who invented or deploy automated phone messaging systems. Phone menu hell is the worst hell of all but I have found sweet release. Two strategies work for me every single time. Because I love each and every one of you and care only about you (yada yada yada) I will share them now.

1. Get a rotary phone. They are less than $2 at junk or yard sales. Most phone menus won't work with them so you get a person instead of that annoying "if you know your party's extension, Social Security number, and favorite food, enter that now..." message. Sadly, some companies have gotten wise to this and now make rotary phone users -- all eight of them -- swing that circle round and round like Betsy at the barn dance.

2. Go to www.gethuman.com/us. You will find an extensive list of almost every major bank, credit card, airline, etc. and how to get a human rather than the voice mail menu. It is priceless. No, really, it's free! I have it bookmarked on every computer and cell phone I have. They update it daily. If you find a glitch or error (I haven't) get in touch with them and they check it out, test the solution, and post it.

What if you want to avoid being frisked by Bubba, Cletus, and Hazel (aka, The Mauler) at the airport? What if you'd rather keep your cell phone, laptop, and makeup handy? Road trip! But be careful. Some jurisdictions let local cops set up shop on the interstate and nab people for three miles over the speed limit or, in the case of one Ohio town, one mile over. Many towns and counties use traffic tickets to fund more than 50% of their budget. It's best to know when you are entering those benighted zones so go to www.speedtrap.org and get a list before you drive.

Want to travel but not drive or fly? Take the bus! No, not Greyhound. Nobody wants to ride with the mobile insane asylum, mental circus, and nutatarium ("Now with smellier bathrooms!"). Take a modern, clean, comfortable bus with reclining seats, snacks served by smiling attendants, drop down TV/movie screens at most seats, and clean restrooms. Megabus is one of the companies offering these buses now (megabus.com). The five hour drive from Detroit to Chicago is only $15... max! There are internet specials as low as $1. No kidding. That's on every single trip, too. Megabus goes from Chicago all over the midwest to places like Cleveland, St. Louis, Indianapolis, etc. We are going to use them for trips over to Chicago to see plays, Christmas lights, and sight seeing. My wife plans to use them to go to the major interior designer expo there. She has never gone before because she didn't want to wrestle her car through traffic, find parking, etc. Now, she doesn't have to. Other companies serve other areas of the country. I know of Limoliner, TransFloridian, and Lux Bus America. All clean, no crazies.

Hey, I'm there for you. Just call, weave your way through the phone system, enter eight passcodes and the launch sequence for the Katushka rocket and I'll get right back to you. Just leave a message.

More Cruise Photos

2006-08-22T13:16:00.000-07:00

More photos of my family at the Woodward Avenue Dream Cruise are at my daughter's blog -- www.karagraves.blogspot.com

Go, enjoy, see how pretty my wife is, how cool my kids are, and how strange one man's form of evangelistic outreach is! (you'll just have to go there to understand that last one)

The Busy Weekend

2006-08-21T07:52:00.000-07:00

After months of traveling and speaking everywhere from New Jersey to Phoenix, Ontario to Louisiana it was good to be home... but what a weekend! There was an elders' retreat, the arrival of students at Rochester College (Jumpstart), a weekend-long unity event between black and white churches of Christ in the metro Detroit area and, of course, the usual three morning services at Rochester. We'd just come off of a busy week with VBS and then the Children's Musical (a huge event here every year) so none of us were rested, but we got through it with the grace of God. Here are some highlights.

1. The Elders' Retreat. When asked about my greatest joy in Rochester or what keeps me here, I always, always list the staff and elders as the answer. The elders at Rochester are all godly men -- even when I disagree with them. I love their hearts. It wasn't a burden to be in their meeting and hear them work through issues and plans. When lunch was brought in -- stacks of pizza boxes -- they had even ordered a vegetarian pizza for me. Cool! God bless them all.

2. I couldn't eat the pizza, though. I was in a hurry to get down to Southfield for a youth event and worship service organized by the metro Detroit churches of Christ. White and black met together all day long in a youth rally, women's day, leadership session, and worship time.

3. While all of this is going on, my son is driving his classic .74 Gran Torino (less than 50,000 miles on it) in the Woodward Avenue Dream Cruise, the largest spectator event in the US. Over 1,000,000 people line four to six miles of Woodward Avenue in Royal Oak as thousands of classic cars and trucks cruise a long loop. He drove it Friday night, Saturday afternoon (the morning was rainy and foggy), deep into the night. It is an incredible event and I would encourage all who love cars or spectacle to come see it at least once. I went with him for a couple of hours on Friday... but I had to be back for more work!

4. On Sunday I preached three services, one after another, as I always do. The difference was that we had several dozen visitors who were bringing their precious children to Rochester College and this was "goodbye Sunday." We spent every minute between services hugging and reassuring the parents, greeting the kids and getting them linked to members, and making sure all knew there would be a celebration party next Sunday (luau theme, by the way. Come and enjoy with us).

5. Right after the third service my family and 80 others from Rochester Church headed down to Southfield for the Mega Worship. Brother Jerry Taylor from Abilene preached again (fantastic, wonderful, pertinent, on target), black and white brothers led us in singing, and then I spoke. I did NOT want to follow Brother Taylor but they gave me no option. They were gracious to me and allowed me to tell my stories, make them laugh, and bring them a message from First Peter. Two hours after it began, the Mega Worship (no kidding -- that was the name of it) was over. Nearly 1000 black and white Christians crossed racial lines to hug each other, serve with each other, and promise more of the same.

6. Oh... and we also fed 2000 people on Friday and supplied that many kids with backpacks and school supplies; kids who would have otherwise had nothing.

Just another weekend in the frozen north. Tell me --

1. Any cool things happen at your place last weekend?
2. Any classic car lovers out there? Of all the cars you've owned, what is the one you loved the most; the one you wish you still had?

Preacher Pain

2006-08-18T06:27:00.000-07:00

It's out in the open now. Fox News has aired clips of a major interview with Rick Warren -- he of the "Purpose Driven Life" fame. Rick is trying to make a major difference in the world and there are many who think he is overreaching, out of touch with the reality of Africa, etc. but I admire him for putting his money, time, and energy on the line.

But that's not what struck me in the interview. Rick Warren revealed that he suffers from a syndrome that is so strange it might end up being named after him. When he gets up to preach, pain and whatever else is going on inside of him causes visual disturbances (he basically goes blind beyond ten feet or so). He admitted that he preaches because of his calling -- his purpose, if you will -- but that he doesn't enjoy it.

Along with my sympathy for Rick arose an empathy for I, too, have a difficult time with preaching. My body has let me down most of my life, I fear. It has taken me from place to place just fine, but whether it was DNA, poor nutrition and care as an infant, or the result of our difficult lifestyle my body has always had a poor immune system and, since my teens, chronic pain has been a fact of daily life. (Do NOT feel sorry for me. I love my life) Sarcoidosis has made my lungs weak and is probably responsible for the joint pain that comes and goes at odd times. Put it all together and you get a man without a lot of energy or lung power and with a splitting headache a few times a week.

But the hardest thing I do -- bar none -- is to get up in front of people and preach the Word. My love of solitude and fear of crowds multiplies the pain and I, too, suffer from visual disturbances from time to time. People always tell me that I make preaching look so easy and my humor is a real gift, but I know that my humor is a coping mechanism and that my preaching is basically an anxiety attack with words attached!

No complaints, really. It is what it is, but God is still God and God is still good.

But I wonder.... anyone else know of preachers who have a real struggle in preaching, but who MUST preach because the message is too important and God's call too strong to stop?

Anyone else pushing through the pain to preach or to fulfill their calling as a nurse, medic, social worker, etc.? I would imagine that Rick Warren's struggle -- and mine -- is far, far more common than people realize. It might be that this is my cross, and his, and... yours?

Search and Rescue

2006-08-15T08:56:00.000-07:00

"World Trade Center" is a well made and important movie. Oliver Stone wisely chose to focus his movie on two men, John McLoughlin and Will Jimeno. McLoughlin was a 21 year veteran sergeant of the Port Authority Police Department. Jimeno was a rookie. When 9/11 struck they were as surprised and out of their element as the rest of us... but they stepped up. If you saw the trailer for the movie you saw a brilliantly done scene (which was true -- to the word -- to life). McLoughlin stands in front of his small group of men. They see buildings breaking around them, people leaping and falling 80 floors, their bodies exploding like bombs. Everywhere is terror and fear is on their own faces. John McLoughlin asks if any will join him to clear the building. The first one to respond is the rookie -- short, pudgy Jimeno, the man with a young daughter and a pregnant wife.

"I got it, Sarge."

I've listened to many interviews given by these men, their families, and other Port Authority Police Officers who were there. That phrase, "I got it, Sarge," has more bravery, courage, and heroism in it than all the pretend Hollywood poseurs and professional sports crybabies will ever have in their entire lifetimes.

Where do we get men like John McLoughlin and Will Jimeno? We honor, love, and respect the firefighters, nurses, doctors, EMU guys, soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen, and police who stand in harm's way for people who will never even know their names. No wonder we give them special privileges, license plates, and discounts. They deserve it -- and much more.

The Bible can be read as a search and rescue mission mounted by God for the benefit of fallen man. The same day of the Fall, God enters the garden and searches for the lost couple. He comes to Cain after the murder of Abel. He sends Noah with a search and rescue mission even though the world rejects the hundred years of preaching and drowns anyway. He sends judges, prophets, kings, and priests. And then He sends His Son. "For God so loved the world, that He gave His one and only son..."

Remember the day the question went out in heaven? "Who shall we send? Who will go for us?" Isaiah stepped up and said, "Here am I, send me."

In other words: "I got it, Sarge."

In Revelation 5 the scroll sits unopened and John weeps. In that scroll is the fate of all mankind. Without it being opened, the world will crash in darkness. No one could open it. No one dared. And then... the Lamb came and opened it as all heaven fell to its knees in awe and wonder and worship.

"I got it, Sarge."

And Jesus kept searching and rescuing the lost and broken. The Samaritan woman (John 4), Zaccheus (Luke 19), Matthew (Matthew 9), the widow at the gates (Luke 7:12), the woman with a bleeding disease (Mark 5), and the Christian-hunter, Paul (Acts 9). While we honor him for his teaching and for the purity of his life, it is the cross that brings us to our knees. It is the fact that he saw the world burning and every person in it lost, without hope. He saw that the only way out was through a cross....

"I got it, Sarge."

There was a time in US history when it wasn't safe to travel to Europe and back. Muslims often struck and killed those innocent travelers, forcing the women to become their wives, enslaving the men. For nearly 300 years, the Barbary pirates operated out of North Africa. They were a plague on innocent people everywhere. In its early years, the new nation of America didn't have an Army that could help them. Their Army was overstretched, worn out, and scattered after the Revolution. The Navy was down to less than a dozen serviceable ships, none of which were powerful enough to go against the pirates. The US paid bribe money -- $60,000 a year -- to the pirates in an attempt to get them to leave American ships alone... and it failed.

Something more had to be done. The President looked to the populace for help. He wrote a letter and sent it via messengers who entered taverns (the first was in Philadelphia) and read the President's words; words that became a motto and slogan that still rings today.

"We are looking for a few good men..." And the United States Marine Corps was born. Eight marines, leading a force of 200-300 mercenaries from Turkey they had trained, landed in the desert and force marched to Dema, attacking and taking the town. The backs of the Barbary pirates were broken by eight marines, led by Lieutenant O'Bannon. The Turks were so amazed as their toughness and skill they presented the Lieutenant with their finest sword -- the Mameluke sword, still worn by Marines to this day. Earned. Never given.

In "World Trade Center," the scene cuts to a standard office where people are watching the news and cringing as they see the buildings fall. One does more than cringe. He goes to his closet and gets out his uniform. He makes his way to Ground Zero, walks past all the barriers placed there to keep everyone out. He is Staff Sergeant Karns, US Marines. When everyone else goes home for the night, he crawls about in the rubble shouting, "United States Marines! If you can hear me, shout or tap!" He finds one other soul in that night, also searching on his own, also a marine. They join forces and they are the ones who found McLoughlin and Jimeno. Afterwards, Staff Sergeant Karns reenlists in the Marine Corps and serves two tours in Iraq.

"I got it, Sarge."

What if Jesus stood before you, playing the McLoughlin role, and said to you: "This world is on fire. I need to know: who is going in with me? Who will go everywhere there is a lost soul and bring them out safely? Who will risk everything and lay down everything right here, right now, and get these people out safely?"

He did. He said that. It's Matthew 28:18-20. He even assures us, "I'm with you to the end. You will not be alone."

Note how He is not asking us to be comfortable, to establish nice, clean churches, or to keep the traditions of our elders. He is asking us to do the hard thing, the brave thing, the unspeakably brave thing.

Who will cross the line and join Him? Who will enter the burning world and bring out His children? Say it with me...

"I got it, Sarge."

Is "Just Enough" -- Enough?

2006-08-07T12:01:00.000-07:00

What if I were to walk into the living room where my beautiful wife sits and say this to her: "Okay, so we're married. I get it. I just need to be real clear on how much I have to do to stay married. What are your requirements? Give me a check list -- as long a one as you want -- and I will do whatever I have to, but no more. That's it. I am looking for the minimum allowable effort."

What would her response be? I doubt that her heart would flutter with joy or that she would brag to her friends about her dedicated and loving hubby, right?

Let me switch gears here. There is something in the universe known as the Law of Unintended Consequences. For example, guns have been effectively banned in the United Kingdom and now their level of robberies, murders and rapes has risen to a rate higher than that in the USA. The very thing they were trying to stop -- violence in their culture -- was fed by the law they passed.

Some very intelligent and dedicated men got together before and after the Cane Ridge Revival. They were seeking a way to unite all the sects of Christianity so that believers would no longer be divided. They put their considerable intellects to work, seeking a solution to the constantly fracturing world of Christian faith and came up with a plea to discover the irreducible minimums of Christianity -- those things all of us could, or should, agree on. They wanted to strip away all the denominational clutter and return to the "thus saith the Lord" of the New Testament.

How successful they were at finding the minimums is, of course, a matter of some controversy, but no one should impune their motives. The results, though, were not what they expected. Those who embraced the concept began dividing over who had found the correct irreducible minimums! Each found proof texts to back up their position and accused those who agreed with them on 90% or more of all their findings, but not the remainder, of being unfaithful, false teachers, evil and corrupt in their minds and hearts, listening only to their own itching ears.

Unbelievable. What was designed to create unity fostered division and acrimony.

But that's not all. It also created a philosophy of religion that turned our worship, obedience, and lifestyles into a simple matter of keeping the minimums, obeying the laws our particular sub-set agreed were the most important. We saw travesties such as men who were dishonestly taking worker's compensation being allowed to lead around the Lord's Table and men who treated their wives as nothing more than property now elevated to leadership because -- as flawed as they were -- they agreed with us on the use of musical instruments or what colleges or authors were acceptable (if any!). Their minimums were our minimums, so they were all right with us.

We had done the religious, metaphysical equivalent of going into our mate and asking for the minimums, thinking that might be acceptable. If it wouldn't work in our marriages (and it wouldn't!), what makes us think God will be happy with that level of love and commitment? Why should we design our worship and lives in such a way as to just stagger across the line of acceptability?

Confession time: I don't just love my wife -- I am enthralled by her. I am fired up and freaked out by being allowed to live in the same house as her. I am amazed by her; I'm always trying to find a way to please her, get near her, and make her smile. I light up when I think of her.

Why can't God get that kind of love from us? Why can't we stop trying not to do anything wrong and, instead, live and love Him lavishly, outrageously, and in such a way that -- though we might not get it exactly right -- He has no doubt where our heart is? Isn't that why He approved David's dance -- barely clothed -- before the Ark and cursed Michel's complaining about it?

In our search to only do what is acceptable, and only do it as often as we are commanded to do so, have we sterilized our religious lives and traded passion and joy for repetition and comfort? I don't WANT my marriage or my religion to be comfortable! I want it to be scary, passionate, thrilling, costly, risky, and powerful beyond words.

What say you?

Lost Books of the Bible

2006-08-02T06:37:00.000-07:00

Are you ready to learn more about the Gospel of Judas? The Book of Jasher? The Gospel of Thomas? Then, my friend, you've come to the wrong place! This short blog is about the other lost books of the Bible; the books we wish God had written, but didn't.

Let's be upfront about this and lay our cards on the table: we are disappointed with the Bible. As grand and wonderful as it is, it seems haphazard and poorly laid out. Don't pick up your keyboards yet. Let me name some of the books it would have been helpful to have.

1. The Book of Worship: Oh how I wish this book hadn't been lost! (for the humor impaired -- I am stepping on the ironic button. No such book was ever written by God, okay? Now, go back to watching Gilligan's Island and hope for a rescue this week) Wouldn't it be wonderful to have a book that said something like "This is the way worship is to be conducted. Herein is a list of the approved songs and the speed at which they are to be sung. Following is a list of the rules on clapping. "Raising hands" is covered in the appendix in the section entitled "So you want to go to hell." How fantastic would it be to have a book spelling out what God approves in worship in mind-numbing, Leviticus-styled detail? We could know that we were absolutely in the will of God because we could go down the list and check everything off as we went. We could even have PowerPoint or MediaShout slides with a magical check appearing as we covered Worship, chapter 6, verses 5-9.
But God didn't give us a Book of Worship for the Christian Age. In fact, there is no detailed description of a worship service in the New Testament. Hmmmmm. Why is that, I wonder?

2. The Book of Fellowship: This is a big one. It is separate from the others because while they spell out behavior that is acceptable to God, this book tells us if we are allowed to fellowship those who don't do everything in the other "lost" books. For example, we see in the Book of Behavior that we are not to smoke. May we fellowship those who do? If not, may we fellowship those who fellowship those who do? How many degrees of separation are required? If I find one of my elders reading an Annie Lamont book or (shudder) a Frank Peretti book, may I still fellowship him? What if he is also in possession of more than two Max Lucado books? If not, may I fellowship those who fellowship him? And so on, ad infinitum. While I agree this book would be huge and rather unwieldy, it would settle quite a few arguments.
But we don't have a book like this. In fact, books such as First Corinthians show us that the laws on fellowship are a WHOLE lot looser than the ones we live by. How'd that happen? Do some of our brethren have this book and only dribble out the info from time to time? This is confusing.

3. The Book of Behavior: We need this one now! This one would cover things like swimming (mixed? Square inch cloth per square inch body area rules? Are rules different in Maine and Florida?), playing the lottery, dress code for Sundays/Wednesdays or if you are serving communion, etc. Wouldn't this be a great book to have? It would be so huge you'd have to be in a church to have one for it would require a dozen or more to lift it. That would come in handy when you found someone breaking the rules you could -- literally -- throw the book at them.
Why didn't we get this book?

What other books do you think we've lost? Play with this awhile and make your suggestions as to books that seem to be lost... or books that some people act like HAVE been written but no one else has seen. Often, when someone confronts me about this or that, they refer to things as being nailed down and forever settled... but they can't nail it down by Scripture. Are they referring to a lost book that they and they alone have access to?

The Bible gives us a narrative of who God is and who we are. The New Testament shows us what saved people acted like and how their leaders led them. It isn't a legal treatise nor is it a set of proof texts -- for if it was a legal text it would be the most poorly written legal text in history. The Bible ISN'T poorly written. It is exactly what we needed: principles, truths, and a narrative that works in every society and every historical era. Will it tell us everything to do, think and believe? No, but it will tell us what the fruits of the Spirit are, what the kingdom of heaven is like, and how to live with each other as we wait for glory.

In the meantime... what other books do we seem to be missing. (tongue planted firmly in cheek)

A Worldwide Family of Faith

2006-07-31T08:00:00.000-07:00

When the cruise ship pulled into the Bahamas we knew it was only for a short time. The gangway went down at 8:30AM and would be pulled up at 2PM. The 3400 passengers of the Carnival Glory wouldn't have much time to discover Nassau so, understandably, there was quite a rush to get off the ship. Kami and I weren't headed to the casinos at the Atlantis on Paradise Island nor were we going to shop the duty free diamond and liquor merchants that lined the docks. We wanted to find the church in Nassau so that we could worship on this cloudy, rainy Sunday morning in the Caribbean.

We'd found the address on the internet and written down the details so we thought getting a taxi would be a simple event. Wrong. The taxi drivers didn't know where it was so they called the number we'd also gotten from the Web and got directions from someone at the building. It would take three calls in all, two taxi drivers, and forty minutes before we were delivered to a medium sized white building in Highbury Park with the words "Church of Christ" written above its door. On the way there -- sometime between the second and third call -- the taxi driver turned to us and said. "We have Catholic churches here, right here on this block. How 'bout you go there? You don't get along with the Catholics?" I assured them that we thought Catholics were very nice people, but that we really wanted to find this particular group of believers, so he pressed on.

A lovely young lady opened the door and greeted us. She found out our names, gave us a bulletin, and led us into the auditorium to find us a seat. The brother teaching the class did a fine job getting others to speak out and offer comments. He greeted us with kindness and genuine warmth. While the building filled up for worship time we couldn't help but notice how many smiles were sent our direction. The young men and girls in front of us turned around during a standing song and hugged us.

At the end of worship, one of the elders stood up. His son had been in my congregation when I was in Morgantown, West Virginia. Sam Heastie was getting his doctorate in education at the time and was a wonderful friend and brother in Christ. To see his father stand up was a delightful surprise. Brother Heastie introduced us to the assembly and then told us that they had arranged a ride back to the ship for us. Two young ladies used their own car to drive us through torrential rain all the way back to the ship. They refused to let us buy them gasoline or lunch (the ride out cost us $20). Smiling, they waved us on.

This is not an isolated incident. All my life I have found refuge, friendship, and love anywhere I have found my brothers and sisters in Christ. I often wonder how people survive without a community of faith. Truth is, I know how they live. I saw the couples come back on the ship, angry at losing money, complaining about the weather, anxious to hit the bars. We came back walking on air supported by the love of those who love God.

The church -- what a wonderful gift! Those people who want Jesus but not the church don't have a clue at the blessing they are tossing away. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord and embrace the church.

Silent Time

2006-07-19T06:51:00.001-07:00

From Friday morning the 21st to Saturday evening the 29th of July I will be out of email contact, out of phone range, and nowhere near a computer. I am taking my wife on an escape cruise to Nassau (where we hope to worship Sunday morning with the locals), St. Martin, and St. Thomas. This will be our second time on the Glory and we are looking forward to it.

We want to cruise with all our blogging friends and raise money for missions at the same time. Our second annual mission support cruise will be next February 2007. We have an eight night cruise planned that leaves from Ft. Lauderdale and visits Panama, Costa Rica, and Belize. Would you come with us? Contact our sister in Christ, Sue Yanaros, at sue@escape2sea.com and get a flyer with all the costs and details, including which missions we are supporting.

This cruise will be different from last year. People wanted more worship and teaching time so that will be offered (Hey... I'm here to serve...) along with optional group excursions. We will also have open seating at meals so we can visit with everyone instead of just a few.

Feel free to comment on this or other blogs below. I'm leaving that open even though it risks nutjobs and spammers getting in the way. God bless you all. I would say that I'll be thinking about you every day but..... nawwww.

The Strange Beginning at Cana

2006-07-16T13:59:00.000-07:00

[LONG post. This comes from a sermon delivered at Rochester today, 7/16/06, and available online at www.rochestercoc.org. What follows is a heavily edited version for those who would rather read it here]

It might seem very strange to have Jesus start his ministry at a party... but not really. Look around. Jesus is the creator of all things (John 1, remember?). That would include otters, dancing bees, wild and crazy parrots, chimps, and your crazy aunt nobody wants to talk about. Take time to read John 2:1-11 and see that there is MUCH more going on here than just a water to wine miracle.

Verses 1&2: A very human moment. Jesus' mother is THERE, but Jesus and the disciples were just invited. Like most of us, the woman really wanted to be at that wedding and the men were just there because... well... the woman really wanted to be at that wedding!

Verses 3-5: I LOVE this passage. It, too, is so human. Mary informs Jesus of the lack of wine. she THINKS she has told him to do something about it, but she hasn't. She, like women everywhere, assume we can read their verbal shorthand. Most men would have heard the news "they're out of wine" and thought, "Bummer! Tell Habib to bring the camel around. We're outta here," but this was Jesus and he is God so he knew what she meant. He tries to get her to understand that he wanted to wait another until time to begin his ministry. In other words, he says "no," but she thinks he REALLY means "yes" and tells the servants to be ready to do whatever he tells them to do! Any men out there with similar experiences, where you told your wife one thing but she assumed you really meant something else and then counted on it? You can almost see Jesus' shoulders slump and hear him say, "Well, okay, but this is gonna cause all kinds of trouble in churches from now on..."

Verse 6: WHAT?!?!? Why did he go to those jars? This was the washing water where each guest would wash their hands and say ritual prayers required by religious tradition. Jesus' followers would be criticized by Pharisees for not keeping this tradition in another passage. Why didn't Jesus just go to the wine sacks, the huge leather bags or -- less often -- jars filled with wine? He could have produced wine there, no problem (since he's God and all), but he didn't. He went over to the 120-180 gallons of bathwater. What is going on here???

Verse 7: When Jesus told them to fill the jars, they filled them to the brim. It makes me think Mary was a formidable woman for them to jump to Jesus' direction so quickly and thoroughly. I would guess she would HAVE to have been strong to live through the rumors about Jesus' parentage and her morality; the rumors would have dogged her throughout her life.

Verse 8: In every Jesus Story there comes a point where I ask "Would I have done that?" Here is that point in this story. Would you have dipped a cup in the bathwater jugs -- which you just filled with water -- and take it to the master of the banquet? Not me. I am amazed at the faith these people had... or how much fear Mary inspired!

Verse 9-10: The miracle is mentioned in passing. No "Lo!" or "Behold!" here, just a simple mention that, oh, by the way, the water was just turned to wine. Wow. Then the master of the banquet asks why this wine -- better than the other wine served already -- was saved to last when people had drunk so much they couldn't appreciate it as much! (so much for this being grape juice by the way. I'm only saying....)

Verse 11: Critical stuff here. The Scripture says this was "the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory." So... this wasn't just a simple thing. This was a gunshot across the bows of the Good Ship SS Tradition and Religious Law. Jesus had exchanged the religious bathwater for 120-180 gallons of wine.

And the chains came off in a thunderclap heard only in the heavenlies (and in retrospect). Jesus ended the Old Covenant's call on us, the burden of hundreds of laws, boundaries, and its tribal nature. The long distance between us and God was closed when Jesus turned -- not to the wine bags -- but to the bathwater and changed everything.

Sound irreverent to think of Jesus this way? As a party guy who threw out the old and brought in joy? I understand. The Pharisees, scribes, etc. all thought Jesus hadn't a clue how to act like a rabbi/preacher/teacher. In Luke 7:30ff Jesus said they were children who wanted a God they could control, who would dance or cry when they wanted him to, and who would eat or drink only what they thought was proper.

And THAT, my friend, is what most of us want and many of us claim we have -- a controlled, predictable, safe God. Don't think so? What do you think or feel when something unplanned or unexpected happens in worship? Keep reading in Luke 7 and you see Jesus goes home with some Pharisees for a meal (I wouldn't have done that, either) and a woman breaks loose and comes over to him. She is a sinner -- everybody in the whole town knows that! -- and she touches him and cries at his feet. Ask yourself this question: if that happened next Sunday at your church, if a broken, nasty, dirty woman came up and pulled the shoes and socks off your preacher's feet (unless the pulpit was being filled by the youth minister in which it would be just the sandals, no socks) what would you do? What would you think? Would you say "Praise God! Someone who needs God has come here to look for Him?" Probably not.

We have raised the Idol of Predictability and placed him on the highest shelf in our hearts. It is the god in your pocket, the one the people in Luke 7 were crying for and Jesus berated them.

Jesus didn't try to get people to come to the temple or synagogue. He went to them. The Pharisees were a restoration movement, a religious purity movement, and Jesus wanted nothing to do with them. He went out, instead, and worked with the publicans, sinners, broken, and thrown away. He never okayed their sins, but he never deserted them, either. The only harsh words out of Jesus' mouth are directed towards the demons and the religiously smug. Think about that one and shiver awhile, if you will.

A party is going on! Some people -- most people -- didn't get their invitation yet. They see only bathwater when they drive by our buildings. They don't want a drink of that. Their invitations have gotten held up for we reserve them for people who might come to our buildings. We don't waste time on the rest of them. But Jesus did.

Have you ever heard of a party that occured and you wondered why you weren't invited? What if you found out that you HAD been but someone else failed to bring you the invitation? How would that make you feel?

Others hear about the party but assume it isn't for them. I got an invitation once and it specified "Evening Dress, White Tie and Tails." That's all I needed to see: that wasn't for me. I wouldn't fit in there. My clothes, my car, and my manners wouldn't pass muster there. And many, many people think that about the church, too. What if we don't know how to behave? When do they stand, sit, speak, shut up.... ?

Jesus turned out the religious bathwater and rigid rules that kept people out and he filled the jars with wine, knowing full well that that would upset and scandalize us. As Luke 7 indicates... he isn't under our control and we had better learn to live with it. He reached out to people who aren't on the religious party invitation mail route. He sought them out, loved them, taught them, healed them, and felt comfortable with them.

And the church will never BE the church until we step away from Bathwater Central and realize that Jesus has changed everything. It's a party, God's party, and you're invited. And so is everyone else. If they won't come to us, let's go to them and tell them that life has changed. The bathwater of religious rules and regs has been tossed out by none other than the Messiah. Let us never again put a lamb in the arms of a Pharisee, surround him with traditions, call them laws, and claim it is a photo of Jesus.

Jesus is who he is. And he has called us to follow him into the wild and tell everyone: come to the party.

Against The Grain, Against the Odds

2006-07-13T17:37:00.000-07:00

I just got back from doing the adult portion of VBS at the Pitman Church of Christ in south New Jersey. It is a remarkable church, especially since it continues to grow despite the fact that it doesn't fit any of the accepted paradigms of growing churches in this post-modern age.

Rochester Church is growing, but it fits the accepted paradigms. It has a cutting edge worship leader, a new way of approaching ministries, staffing, extensive use of video, drama, and special events to reach its community. I love it! But compare us to Pitman and it would seem that one of us should be failing.

For one, Pitman is still doing VBS. How many churches have abandoned that? [full disclosure: Rochester still does VBS but I have often wondered how effective it is and whether it should continue]. The songs they sing haven't been used in most churches for a generation. On Sunday, their songs are the older traditional songs with some newer ones sprinkled in, and during VBS they sing "Once there were three wandering Jews" and "Father Abraham" and similar songs I thought had passed on due to age and political correctness. I cringed when the kids sang out as loud as they could "JEW, JEW, JEW!" (Am I becoming a politically correct, French loving, brie eating, touchy-feely wimp? )

The building is old (they are building a new one) and every book I've read recently tells me people won't go to one like that... but they do. And the people who go there! It is a wonderful mix of white, African-American, and Hispanic. A great number of them have no former connection with any of the restoration movement's three branches and, in fact, come from all walks of life. It is a more diverse congregation than any other I will deal with this year. Even after this, my third time with them, I walk away amazed.

How do you build a church without any of the postmodern accoutrements? How do you bring them in (they run over 300 in two morning services... in New Jersey! Right where people say it can't be done, they do it) and keep bringing them in when it would seem against the grain, against the odds? Just when so many are running away from the name "Church of Christ", Pitman's minister and elders (and many members) wear the name on golf shirts, button down oxfords, baseball hats, coffee mugs, and key chains. There it is just above a drawing of three crosses. They are proud of who they are and their name.

Their secret weapon is community. Their preaching minister is Dan Cooper, an energetic, kind, and tireless community builder. His elders are positive, encouraging, and supportive. People don't attend Pitman; they are brought into the family of Christ at Pitman. Their bulletin is a long list of service projects, outings to plays and events in Philly or New York, gatherings at this or that house, or requests for families to take care of this or that person who needs help. You sense love and participation, fellowship and community all around you.

As usual, I come away humbled by Pitman. They don't "do it" the way the blogroll's reading list says they should, and I doubt any of the members knows who Donald Miller or Mark Driscoll is. It would surprise me if they've been to Tulsa or taken in an Emerging Church seminar... but they are shining like a city on a hill. They glow with grace, joy, and love all wrapped up in community. What a wonderful, wonderful congregation. God bless Dan Cooper, the elders, and the Pitman church. Thanks for the lesson.

That's Not Okay With Me...

2006-07-07T13:36:00.000-07:00

According to the last census, Detroit is the most African-American city in the US. Bordering Detroit is Livonia, declared the whitest city in the US by that same census. Eight Mile Road is a border land inhabited by Chaledeans (Iraqis, mainly Christian) who have their own closed community. I could go on and on because the tribal lines everywhere here and those lines are walls; and woe be unto anyone who wants to breach them.

That's not okay with me.

Jesus launched a revolution where he replaced 600+ laws on religion with a new rule: "The only thing that matters is faith expressing itself in love" (Galatians 5). Since that time Christians have scurried to make new laws, new walls, new barriers.

That's not okay with me.

We sit in worship with people who look like us, who like the things we like, and with whom we are comfortable. Outside are single mothers, rockers, slackers, addicts, the divorced, the slaves of consumerism, gray minions of corporate America, skateboarders and.... you get the idea. None of them will ever feel comfortable with our ways or in our buildings. In those rare instances in which they want to be a part of us, we force them to become us first! They have to be more like us, agree with our preferences, and behave themselves.... then and only then are they allowed access to the Kingdom.

That's not okay with me.

My neighborhood is full of young couples with children. Toys, bikes, swingsets, and forts are in every yard but ours. We are the old folk here. On Sundays, only a couple families from this subdivision go to worship. None go with us and none will consider driving the 20-30 minutes it takes to get to Rochester Hills from our home. They won't go with me, so should I leave them to their fate?

That's not okay with me.

Dearborn Heights, an area about a forty minute drive from my house, has the largest concentration of Muslims of any place in the US. Drive another hour south and, just as you leave Toledo and enter the flat northwest corner of Ohio, there is a huge and opulent mosque reminding you of who has congregated here. Reaching Muslims is difficult (always) and can be dangerous (rarely). Chances of success are small. Most people write them off, turn slightly away from the swarthy man boarding the bus or the plane, stand next to them in line at Meijers, saying nothing, and then go to a segregated, safe place on Sunday and sing "Anywhere with Jesus."

That's not okay with me.

If I have to form evangelistic small groups to target each of these people for Jesus, I'm okay with that. If that makes some of my brethren nervous because their comfortable, predictable church order is changed around and their preferences (and ease) are no longer the greatest priority, I'm saddened by their attitude, but I'm okay with that, knowing that doors swing both ways and keeping them in and happy means keeping out everybody else. I will not trade one soul for a million, not if it is over a matter of taste and tradition rather than a plainly stated "thus sayeth the Lord."

I'm just not okay with that.

Will we fail? Yes. Probably several times. But the greatest failure of all would be to keep doing what we have always been doing and expect God to change everybody else in the world so that they will look, like, and think like us... and then magically come in and sit quietly with us at church. It would require ignoring the Great Commission, the Revolution of Jesus, and the facts of the gospel. It would require us to shrug our shoulders and consign the rest of the world to hell.

That's not okay with me. Is it with you?

Surf's Up!

2006-07-06T09:06:00.000-07:00

[NOTE: just a reminder -- everything I write on this blog or over at tentpegs.blogspot.com is free of copyright. You may use the material in any way you wish -- even to disparage it! If you copy bits and pieces or whole articles and ideas there is NO need to attribute me. This is freely given. And worth every penny]

The waves are coming! I've never officially surfed. I've body surfed quite a lot and I've hung onto a boogie board for dear life from time to time, but no one's ever accused me of being blond, tanned, fit and reckless. I have a deep appreciation for the power of waves and at how helpless they can make you feel.

I'm caught in one right now, as a matter of fact. God sent in the wave and caught me off guard. Our church is going multi-site and using a multi-pronged approach to reach the lost in a large area of southeast Michigan. Almost everything we are doing or planning to do is new to us. In fact, it is outside of our CoC DNA. We MUST do it, though, for the Spirit is moving us in such a dynamic and forceful way that to resist it would be an act of open rebellion.

For most of my life the church (my particular tribe of it, anyway) has ignored the waves of change and the waves of human experience. We refused to grab our boards, climb on, and ride the big blue curl. We were comfortable treading water and either denying waves even existed or, if admitting that they might, we refused to get caught up in them. We stayed in our small group -- our buddy system intact, maintained by disapproval and a very large unwritten creed backed up by brotherhood publications -- paddling around in a tight circle while the wild and woolly people around us shouted "Cowabunga!" and zipped away.

The days of denominational loyalty are over. Most of the arguments we used to keep each other in line have failed in the two youngest generations on the planet. In retrospect, most of the arguments seem rather silly, like a theological version of the Monty Python argument scene with John Cleese (and going to church was akin to paying 5 pounds for the privelege of argument!). Like it or not, this is reality; our children are not impressed with our John Locke lockstep. They couldn't care less about postmodernism or modernism. They want to live in a way that matters, in a caring community, and in a way that brings honor to God.

But they don't want a megachurch -- brand name or not. They don't want a tiny church. They want to be in an active and meaningful small group that is part of a larger movement, one they can "dock with" from time to time; one that rides the waves with them and gathers to share the experiences in fellowship and grace.

I have fought God most of my life. I think of myself as a reluctant minister, a hesitant leader, a fearful explorer, and a timid son... but God keeps patiently sending the waves until I can't help myself -- I climb on and ride. Tomorrow night we -- the staff and elders -- will talk to a hand selected group of 60 of our members and give them our vision; what we believe the Lord can do here, with us, if we are unafraid.

I believe that Jesus would tell us "Lift up your eyes, for the fields are ripe for harvest" again. And he wouldn't want us standing on the shore, or dog-paddling in a tight, self-congratulatory group. He'd be the first to climb on his board and shoot the curl, all the while waving us onward.

Surf's up! Let's ride!

Vive la Revolution!

2006-07-03T07:18:00.000-07:00

I learned the poem when I was in third grade and remember it still:

By the rude bridge that arched the flood
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled.
Here, once, embattled farmers stood
And fired the shot heard round the world

Even though that shot was directed towards a mixed company of English, Scottish and German troops (i.e. "my team") I have always loved that line: the shot heard round the world.

There were other revolutions: the industrial revolution, the renaissance, the invention of movable type come to mind, but the greatest revolution of all time came through the person of Jesus Christ. We often picture him as the lamb-holder guy or the surfer-dude-looking-guy praying in front of a rock, but we rarely see him as he was -- the greatest revolutionary of all time.

Here's a challenge: read the first five books of the Bible. I dare you. Don't skip the meal offering bits in Leviticus. More than 600 rules are there covering every single aspect of life and worship from rotating crops to the position of the altar to the underwear worn by priests. For a thousand years that was the only way to approach God; the only way to be in fellowship with His people. No exceptions -- you had to strap on those five books of Law and walk the right direction, bucko, or no worship for you!

Then Jesus came. He walked up the Mount of Olives, sat down, and changed everything. In the Old Testament, God promises storehouses full of blessings to those who follow Him. Jesus starts his sermon by blessing the weak, hungry, thirsty, and poor. In the Old Testament, you gathered at the temple for worship. Jesus told his followers they were to be salt and light -- out in the world.

And then he said it -- five times in Matthew chapter 5: "You've heard it said, but I say to you." Don't step past that without asking: "You've heard it said by whom?" The answer, in most cases, is God. Jesus was saying, "God said this, but I say this"! What? Who does this guy think he is??? In Matthew 7:28,29 the Bible says, in modern vernacular, "The people were deeply shocked by what he said. 'Who does this guy think he is to speak like this?'"

No longer were they to be separate, sticking their noses up as they passed Samaritans. They were to engage them, love them, and offer salvation to them. Horrors! This guy is ruining the church we've loved for 1000 years! This guy is changing everything!

Just like all revolutions, not everybody bought into it. In the Colonies, only 30% wanted to separate from England. In Jesus' revolution, his church rejected him, nailing him to a cross. "That's what he gets for trying to change the church!" you can hear them say.

And what a revolution it was: Jesus took us from a set of 600+ laws to a New Testament that doesn't even describe a worship service. You heard me right. Read it. There is no description of a worship service. There are a few things we can glean or infer out of Acts and a few more in First Corinthians (but in the latter book you really don't want to copy much). Some run to Ephesians, Colossians and Galatians to get rules on singing but those have nothing to do with the worship service (another phrase not found in Scripture). The "psalms, hymns and spiritual songs" section refers to the way you are to live your life, not what you do for an hour on Sunday.
This frustrates and angers us, so we undo the revolution. We did that in the US, too. We rebelled because of the onerous 2% tax burden the English put on us and because they often boarded soldiers on/in our property without permission or reimbursement. Today, the average tax burden is over 30% and the Supreme Court says they can take your property anytime the township or city thinks it can put something else there that raises more tax income. Makes you wonder why you went through the war, doesn't it?

And in the church, Jesus took the temple away... and we replaced it with church buildings. Nothing wrong with buildings, but we treat them as a priority and holy space, allowing some things in our home but not in the building. He took away the Levitical priesthood and we replaced it with convention speakers and brotherhood papers. He sent us out to be light and salt and we prefer being salty in the salt shaker and light in the chandelier. We avoid the people he wanted us to embrace.

At Rochester, we are determined to join Him in revolution again. While maintaining our building as a worship, teaching, and service center, we have three other prongs of approach to Jesus' dream. Charitable works is one of them and this church runs several efforts on a daily basis, some of which have garnered national attention. Next comes the launching of people into communities (as mentioned previously), giving them our blessing and backup as they reach out to Goths, rockers, the homeless, addicts, and various prisoners of suburbia. Fourth, we are sending out teams of sixty to one hundred to start congregations in target communities. All of these works are small group based and they aren't your usual small groups.

Forgive me, but most small groups are merely an alternative to checking the "Sunday night" box on our righteousness ticket or a fun way to stay close to people we see every Sunday morning. Our small groups are evangelistic and service oriented (and are getting more so).

Jesus launched a revolution. We've decided to rebel with him. Wanna come along? Vive la revolution!

The World's Worst Lover... Smiles!

2006-06-28T07:09:00.000-07:00

There's an old joke that goes something like: an old married couple is lying in bed when the woman reaches over and whacks the man on the shoulder. "What's that for?" he cries. "For being a lousy lover," she says and rolls over. He thinks awhile and whacks her on the shoulder. "What's that for?" she cries. "That's for knowing the difference!" he says.

You've heard me mention Kami and seen a photo of her with Duncan in the last post. Today is our 28th anniversary. Twenty eight years ago I had sold almost everything I owned including furniture and books so that I could buy her an engagement and wedding ring from a discount jeweler. It was -- and is -- a tiny ring but it represented all I owned, all I dreamed, and all I hoped for. She said "yes" and so we were married at the Bear Valley Church of Christ in Denver, Colorado. That night we hit the road for the eastern edge of the country. We were going to work with an African-American congregation in Edenton, NC, helping them to build a building and get started.

So, on that late June day, we piled my Renault LeCar full. It had no air conditioning so we opened the vinyl, fold-back roof and headed across the country. This was back during Jimmy Carter's 55MPH mandate. Think about that for a moment: 55mph across Kansas. Then Missouri. Etc. It took us a week. With just a tiny radio, there wasn't much to do but talk to each other. Twenty eight years later, we still talk to each other, and we still enjoy traveling with each other.

I might be the world's lousiest lover. Or she might be. But since we are the only lovers we will ever have we are very happy with each other. In a world where dates are sexual tryouts complete with angst, fear, and looming failure we are freaks. We know that. We're okay with it. I won't run into an old lover in the grocery store nor will she run into a guy she used to live with. We are exclusive. Our secrets are safe with each other. So, while we may be great or lousy in the lover department, we are smiling because we only know each other -- and we love each other.

The world looks upon sexual exclusivity as if it were some sort of punishment. It seems, to them, as if God is holding out on them when He declares one man, one woman for life. But think of it this way: barring some bizarre blood transfusion mixup, we don't have to worry about AIDS. We won't get it. We don't worry about other STD's, either. While we give money and time to organizations that help fight those modern day plagues we know that we are safe in our happy home because we belong to each other, always have and always will.

Are we bragging? NO! This is all the gift of God. I was given an incredible gift by finding the right person to marry. When I first saw her it was like all my birthdays came at once. I didn't know how to date a Colorado girl so I took a shot and we rode horses. And rode them and rode them until I was completely out of quarters! She didn't spray me with Mace and run away so I knew she was the one.

We love each other. We don't fight (really!). We consider each other gifts from God and act accordingly. All of that is because of God's teaching, God's wisdom, and God's direction given to us by many, many faithful people in the church. None of it is because of us. All of it is because of Him.

Thank you, God, for life with Kami. Our life may be lousy, but we are so ignorant we think we're wonderfully happy and content. If that's what they mean by "ignorance is bliss" just let me say I wouldn't trade my bliss for anyone else's experience and knowledge. I still carry her high school senior photo in my wallet, because that is still the way she looks to me! God's way works just fine when both husband and wife try it.

And for those who's marriages or lives fell apart: I am not trying to rub it in. Without some very hard work on God's part I would be where you are. He knew I wasn't strong enough to survive what you have gone through, so He gave me Kami. These few words are a tribute to Him. And to her.

The Newest Marine

2006-06-26T18:18:00.000-07:00

Meet the newest Marine. Duncan Taylor MacKay Mead took the military oath at 3:10PM EST on Monday June 26th. For the next eleven months he will be in the "Pool," the group of recruits in the Delayed Entry Program. He chose the Military Occupational Specialty of "Rifleman." His mother might have preferred "Anything Else" but Dunk wants to serve God on the sharp point of the spear. He is trying for an NROTC scholarship (keep praying!). He is already guaranteed Platoon Leader Course so he WILL be an officer -- Lord willing; it is only the path to those gold bars on his shoulders that is still in question. In the meantime, he trains with the Marines twice a week, finishes high school, and continues to play a leadership role in our 115+ youth group at Rochester.

The bluish-purple ribbon on the sign reads "Freedom's Front Door" as does the door into the Ceremony Room where recruits take the oath. As in all things, we covet your prayers and -- remember -- to God be the glory.

More Pollock Painting....

2006-06-23T20:14:00.000-07:00

More scattered thoughts as I sit in central Nebraska...

Ten more baptisms. That makes 17 so far with several kids announcing they intend on being baptized when they get home to their families this Sunday. After each baptism the kids leapt to their feet screaming with joy, pumping their fists, applauding like mad, stomping their feet. Wow! After. Every. Single. One. It didn't matter if they knew the kid or not -- the kid was choosing the Jesus side of the battle and so the whole group cheered them on.

Duncan started going through the security clearance process. He swears in -- we're told -- at 1:00PM EST on Monday.

War is an un ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important to him than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. [John Stuart Mill]

Tomorrow I'll get up before 6AM and drive to Omaha to catch a plane to Minneapolis. After waiting there awhile I'll catch another one to Detroit. Duncan and Kami will be there to meet me. Happy day! Is there anything more wonderful than a family that loves you? Second only to salvation, the greatest gift God ever gave me is my precious, precious family.

It took me over an hour to get away after giving my last talk. I ended it by giving them a charge and an admonition -- St. Patrick's Prayer [I put that on Tentpegs some months ago]. Afterwards, kids came up for my autograph (!) so I signed about 30 of those. Over a hundred wanted pictures of me with them. This is unusual, to say the least. How does a 49 year old man rate this kind of affection from teens?

A girl comes up to me, crying. She is praying for Duncan and asks for my prayers, for she is leaving for the Marine Corps in a few months. She is pumped at the chance of testing herself and serving her country. And she is frightened, too.

You cannot exaggerate about the Marines. They are convinced to the point of arrogance that they are the most ferocious fighters on earth. And the amusing thing about it is that they are. [Father Kevin Kearney, Chaplain, 1st Maine Division, Korean War]

I just talked to Duncan on the phone. He was laughing, digging through my toolbox for implements of destruction. He and a friend are helping one of our older members tomorrow. She has three sheds that need torn down so Duncan and Curtis are going to do it. He laughs as he tells me it will be good practice for him. He reminds me of the bumper sticker that says "When it absolutely, positively has to be destroyed overnight -- call the Marines"

Military power wins battles, but spiritual power wins wars. [General George Marshall]

Sunday, I will preach at a black church in Detroit. Their minister will preach for Rochester. We hope this will be the first of many pulpit swaps. In August, we are calling all black and white churches to meet together for three days at the Southfield Convention Center. It's time the church looked like heaven's going to look -- a full pallet of colors!

Maybe I'll get some rest after Monday. I'm headed to New Jersey the second week of July. The first week of July I'll do something I've never done before. Usually, I kid people that my side was the losing side two hundred years ago and that their playing with fireworks just rubs it in.

This year, I'm flying the flag. Your flag. My flag, now.

Thoughts on a Scattered Canvas

2006-06-22T15:10:00.000-07:00

I'm still in Nebraska and will be until Saturday evening. A lot has gone on here and in the news and it causes my thoughts to flitter this way and that, somewhat like a Jackson Pollock painting. For those who might be interested, here are the random tunes of thought that keep rolling through my head.

Four baptisms two nights ago. The kids reacted with fierce enthusiasm after each one. How much better than the way we reacted in my day... by saying and doing nothing; just waiting for the song leader to step up and fill in the time with songs until the preacher could get back out. Hearing their battle cries of joy, seeing their fists pump the air, you sense they understand that one of their friends is now safe at last, home at last.

My son's physical went very well. One doctor called him a "perfect specimen." That was a compliment but it still sent a chill down my spine. My son isn't a specimen. He is unique. Yet, the Corps will make him part of the machine. I am proud and afraid in equal measures.

Three baptisms last night. No lessening of enthusiasm among the kids. Dozens are asking for prayers. Unlike the prayers I remember when I was a teen, these prayers aren't for themselves but for their friends and family. They are "other centered" not "self centered" and I am impressed. I find myself wishing I was as good a person as these teens.

Two good American men were butchered while still alive in the cruelest way imaginable. The animals who butchered them -- as far as I am concerned they turned in their "human race" card by this act -- may or may not still be alive. Soldiers and Marines are sweeping through the area killing over 200 and arresting hundreds more.

My son raises his hand on Monday to swear into the Marine Corps. The events of these days makes me prouder of him than ever. And yet... sleep is hard to come by. He is my boy. My son. My only son.

Today as I walked the campus of York College the teens cut short their games, songs, and gossip to come over and thank me for being there or make a comment on this or that. They wanted to visit with this old guy and that touched me deeply. Where do we get such good kids? Why has God blessed us with so many righteous teens? I am grateful and I am humbled by their affection.

Watershed had to postpone their concert here a third time today as one of their members is caught in airport purgatory because of storms in the upper Midwest. His wife is due to have a baby soon, as is the wife of Chris Lindsey, their lead singer and Rochester's Worship Minister. I pray for Tony's safety and thank God that they do this airport shuttle/shuffle every week without complaint.

Papers captured two years ago are slowly being translated and -- more slowly -- released that prove Saddam had lots of WMDs. Some were captured, most were moved away from Iraq with the complicity of Russia, Syria and France. And, of course, all three sit on the security council of the UN. I try not to think uncharitable thoughts. And fail.

Congressman Murtha calls our Marines murderers. Yet, more information coming out about Haditha indicate that this might very well end up being a hoax. Early reports say the people were killed with AK-47 rounds (7.62X39) and not the M16/M4 rounds used by the Marines (5.56 NATO). Also, the film was supplied by a man whose parents are known terrorists and he is a member of an insurgent group. It isn't enough to yell "hoax!" yet, but it is enough to make me want to slap Murtha. And to cancel my subscription to TIME magazine -- the ones who shopped the video all around the world before checking it out.

I try to calm my spirit but it just won't settle down. Images of Haditha, posturing politicians, my son, the two American soldiers, and the work waiting for me at home all press upon my mind and heart. I need to leave my room and sit among the teens again. By this time of day, and this deep into the week, they can smell a little bit and they are distinctly untidy. But they are smiling, laughing, praying, and singing. They think I am here to help them. I thought so, too. But, as so often happens, I find that when I went to give someone a blessing God had planned all along to give me one, instead.

Come Lord Jesus.

Is There Anything in Nebraska?

2006-06-19T13:53:00.000-07:00

I am in York, Nebraska for the entire week. I NEVER go anywhere for a full week. Why did I agree to this? I'm not sure, but here I am. I am speaking only one hour a day, every evening from Sunday through Friday night, and then I will fly back to Detroit. When I told people I was going to Nebraska I got a lot of sympathetic looks. Nebraska? Is there anything thing other than corn there?

There certainly IS corn but there is also much more. York isn't a large or vibrant town (at least, I don't think so from what I've seen) but York College is doing well. The staff and faculty seems first rate, absolutely dedicated to Jesus, the scripture, and young people. Over a hundred of them work with four hundred or so students and, I must say, they are making a difference. This week is Soulquest with kids coming from Wyoming, Nebraska, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, Iowa and... well, I'm sure some other places, too. There are hundreds of them here. Last night, at the opening session, the kids were alert, tuned in, and ready for a week given over to spiritual things.

Yes, there is something special going on in Nebraska.

I stay out of the way during the day. Part of it is that whole antisocial thing I've got going, but another reason is that this week's not about me. It's about drawing teens closer to Jesus via youth workers and volunteers who have come from all over to help them. Most of these kids come from tiny churches and will never have a youth minister. This is the only time they will get to be mentored, taught, loved, and prayed for by those who have answered the call to reach God's younger children. They are pouring their hearts out and teaching their hearts out... and it is making a difference now and forever.

When I get back to Detroit on Saturday night, I will be a better man because I saw what was happening in Nebraska. The next morning I will drive into Detroit where I will preach for the Wyoming Avenue Church, a large African American congregation. Their minister will go to Rochester to preach for me. This pulpit swap is the first part of a summer of interchanges and events designed to draw the races closer together on earth as we will be in heaven. Sunday evening one of the young adult small groups has asked if I could come speak to them. The next day, Monday, Duncan swears into the Corps (he is having his physical while I am writing this). That evening I have been asked to come over and pray for a member's mother. The next night I have been asked to meet with one of our missionary groups (Missional Orders, we call them). The following day is the first in our Emerging Artists Series at Rochester where we showcase the artistic talent that is among us.

A busy week, no doubt. However.... I fully expect to stop every so often in the bustle, lights, traffic, noise and rush of meto Detroit and think of what's going on in Nebraska. There is more than corn here. God is here, and He is busy.

God on the way to June 26th

2006-06-16T13:26:00.000-07:00

We have our date. Duncan will swear into the Marine Corps as a poolie (in the pool of Delayed Entry recruits) on Monday morning, June 26th. Kami and I spent some time with the sargeants down at Pontiac RS today and got some more questions answered. Things look good and positive. We read Frank Shaeffer's books to get ourselves ready. Kami and Duncan both thought Frank was a jerk and way too emotionally unbalanced (I did, too) so the consensus is we can get through this better than he did. We'll see.

What is amazing to me is how many Marines and Marine Corps family members God has placed in our path over the last several months. Dee Andrews has sent us good stuff and continually encourages us (her son was an officer in the Corps). Everywhere I turn there seems to be a Marine placed there by God to encourage us. Even on the plane coming home last night from Edmond, OK I sat by a man in his early 50's. For some reason our discussion moved to our children and I told him my son was swearing in very soon. His son was -- at that moment -- in the Mojave Desert doing his combat training in the Corps and the man himself was a former officer in the Corps. He told me: "Make sure he's in superb physical shape and tell him to find at least one thing to laugh about every day. That way, he'll make it."

The number of people who have come up with a tip, a small piece of advice, a contact, or an offer of prayer is amazing. If we ever doubted this was a God ordained journey for Duncan, we do so no longer.

In Oklahoma City, as I drove around the airport, I saw Sgt. Grits, a worldwide supplier of Marine Corps specialty gear. We have ordered things from the catalog a few times for Dunk's birthday and here was the warehouse! I went in, met the Gunnery Sergeant who runs the place and had such a good time I went back the next day for more.

Most of my life God's voice has been very hard to discern. In this, however, He could not be more plainly spoken. We have been given His blessing and we, in turn, gave ours to Duncan. We have not been promised that God would spare him from injury, pain, privation, or death. We have just been assured that we would not be alone, and neither would Duncan, as we journey forward.

Keep the prayers going for all who wear the uniform or carry a badge on our behalf. Semper Fi.

Okay, I'll Say It

2006-06-10T07:13:00.000-07:00

Zarqawi is dead. I'm glad. There, I've said it. Before some of my friends want to sit down and fire off angry missives my direction from the comfort of their homes and with their full bellies, let me review:

1. Yes, every soul is precious.
2. Yes, we love everyone.
3. Yes, I would have rather he converted and given the keynote at next year's Tulsa worshop.
4. Yes, I'm sure his mommy loved him.
5. Yes, his current state is tragic and horrible beyond imagining.

Yet....

1. His death gives our soldiers and marines a better chance of coming home to their mothers.
2. He sawed the heads off living people on camera and sold the DVDs in the marketplace (and one of the most popular places to buy those DVDs was Haditha where the children sold them openly in the streets).
3. He called for the death of every Western citizen including, yes, France. C'mon, what did France do to anybody? (with the exception of that Jerry Lewis thing)
4. He trained, motivated, and financed hundreds of fascist fanatics and loosed them with suicide bombs and IEDs to slaughter his own people.
5. He marched fellow Muslims off buses and shot them in the head because they didn't agree with his his view on Mohammed's true heir was. Many of these were teenagers and women.
6. His ego was fed by a spirit of pure evil. If he is unreachable and unconvertable, and if he is determined to kill the innocent, what would Jesus do? Check the Old Testament. Jesus told us that it spoke of him. Those who stood against God and his people and refused to repent were sentenced, by God, to death, plagues, etc.

It makes you wonder: do those who mourn the death of Zarqawi, who claim that, as Christians, we must wail and be sad, think they can out-Christian Christ?

The Marine Corps is not a safe place for anyone, but my son will be somewhat safer because this fallen man is gone. I wish it could have been otherwise. I wish he would have been open to reason and revelation. But he wasn't. He dealt the cards, again and again and dared us to do anything about it. We called him and took him out of the game.

Allow me a moment to breathe easier this weekend and to hope for the safety of my son. Allow me to be happy that one more madman -- one who would kill me, take my daughter as a slave or worse, and end freedom of the press and freedom of religion -- is gone. Will others rise in his place? Certainly. And may God deliver them into the hands of just men.

If David -- a man after God's own heart -- could pray and sing for the destruction of his enemies, and if the Holy Spirit enshrined those songs as scripture, then allow me a song of praise this day.

Thank you, Father. And to the team? Hoo-rah.

Silly Dilemmas

2006-06-08T06:57:00.000-07:00

We have three services each and every Sunday morning. I preach at each of them and enjoy doing so, but it has presented me with some situations that remind me how silly I am.

Take the Lord's Supper. No, I mean take it. How many times are you going to take it? I take it all three, but twenty years ago I would have taken it once and considered multiple takings a sign of liberalism run amok... or at least, liberalism walking briskly.

I considered taking the bread in the first and the wine in the second but that only confused everybody and gave the ushers hiccups as they tried to remember what to do.

So now I take it every service and am glad I do. However.... I don't give at every service. I only give once. One time, as a staff, we met and asked ourselves how to lead our congregation in giving (this is an incredible staff! They ALWAYS lead from the front, giving first, serving first, etc.). It was decided that it was a bad thing that two of our worship services never saw us give. We weren't modeling for them. So, let's split our giving into three checks and give some each service" Sounded good until volunteers who counted for one service but not another came across our checks and thought "those lousy hypocrites. This is all they're giving!" So, I'm back to giving one check.

Silly? Sure! Absurd? No question! But so are most things we puzzle and worry about. Will Jimmy do well in his clarinet lessons? May I speak for the universe and say, "Who cares?" There are only 18 jobs for clarinet players in the world and most of them require you to be an alcoholic so let's not fret over it shall we? And when was the last time you heard someone say, "Pete, you played the tuba in high school, didn't you? Drag that sucker out of the closet and play something for the party!"

I don't have a "the churches of Christ salute you" bumper sticker on my car and never have. Reason? Well, the small "c" always freaked me out for one, but the real reason is that I don't always drive in a holy and righteous manner. I would hate to bring shame on the church because I didn't come to a complete stop at a blinking red light (that is, a light that goes on and off, not to be confused with the euphemistic "That blinking red light!").

Silly? Yes, yes, yes.

Half of the elders' meetings I go to wind up discussing some issue or some complaint that is so, so silly -- at least to me. I think God has to shake his head and call Michael over to point it out sometimes. "Can you believe THAT'S what they're worried about?"

I pray daily for wisdom. I pray daily that I will only regard as important the things that God regards as important and that He waves off, I will, too. I think I'm getting better at it.

But maybe I'm just being silly.

Fellini Man

2006-06-05T14:10:00.000-07:00

Maybe you've never seen a Fellini film. If not, stop right now, say a heartfelt prayer of thanks, and read on. Fellini did bizarre, avant garde films that were full of concepts and meanings and symbols that could only be decoded by the intelligentsia or someone on a large amount of pharmaceuticals. One of the famous Fellini-style scenes would be, for instance, a beach full of young, vibrant people in skimpy bathing suits (for the time) playing volleyball, laughing, smiling... you get the point. Then, off to the side, not in the center of the shot, would come an older man in a business suit, Trilby hat, briefcase, and wearing a hang-dog expression. He would walk through the middle of the young people with no sign that he noticed them, or they him.

I am Fellini man.

It happens to me all the time. Maybe that's because I get out there into one subculture after another or because I majored in eccentricity in college (Fred's University and Storm Door Company), or both, but I seem to be stuck in strange situations where someone could pop up at any moment and sing the Sesame Street song "one of these things is not like the other" and the answer would be me -- Fellini Man.

As noted some time ago, I went over to Windsor, Ontario and gave a short talk to the FBI Academy annual meeting. It went well enough that I was asked to speak at a couple of other law enforcement events. One of them was last night; an adjunct to the Global Day of Prayer. A sergeant in the Michigan State Police, who is also a pastor, asked me to come and join them for that day of prayer and I agreed to do so. SO after doing three morning services and then attending a graduation party, I drove an hour and a bit west to Ypsilanti where there was a huge wedding-style white tent set up, complete with a stage and three hundred or so folding chairs. I was ushered up to the front row immediately, given a Pastor badge, and sat down. That's when things got interesting.

The organizer came over and showed me a schedule. The event was to last an hour and a half and he showed me when I was supposed to get up and "speak a few minutes." Speak? I didn't know about that, but I was okay with it. Then he showed me a second time when I was supposed to get up and speak. Twice? Well... okay.... I guess.

So I spoke the first time to the mixed race group (it was very encouraging to see the harmony. Whites were a minority, but not overly so) and then got up the second time. It was obvious that almost all of the attendees were Pentecostal; with calls for casting down strongholds, badges that identified some as being in Peter Wagner's prayer group, musicians that didn't stop playing even during my talks and the prayers, lots of rhyming, etc.

After my second talk I handed the microphone back to the organizer who refused it and leaned in whispering, "Would you give the altar call, Dr. Mead?" Altar call? ALTAR call??? I knew I was being given this task as an honor and I really appreciated it... but an altar call?

So I did. It was undoubtedly the strangest, most tentative, most Fellini-like altar call ever but, hey, it was my first time! Several came to me for prayer for this or that and I prayed for them.

Done at last! Uh, no. After two and a half hours (see estimated time length above...) the organizer called for all the pastors and law enforcement officers present to come up to the stage. I did, managing to get all the way to the back so I wouldn't be called up to the microphone again. The lead pastor called for any pastor who felt led by the Spirit to say whatever came to mind. The band kicked it in, drums blazing, bass thumping, as three hundred people stood, stomping, clapping, waving hands, and dancing. Two ladies told us of visions they'd had in the last couple of hours and, helpfully, supplied the interpretation of the visions, too. I -- Fellini Man -- stood quietly and wondered if science will ever develop a real Cloak of Invisibility.

The microphone went from one to the other, each outdoing each other in energy, hyperbole, calls that we were in the end times, denouncing government officials for abortion, speaking in tongues, calling for the demolition of more strongholds, etc. I did my best Matrix impression, moving out of the way of the microphone everytime it came my way. Successfully, I might add. After infinity... or slightly less...the open mike pastor session came to a close. Afterwards, I was touched by how many came up to me and thanked me personally, offering me a kind word here or there for the few things I said.

Uncomfortable? Sometimes. Outside of my tribal customs? Yes, yes, yes. I never regretted being there, though. I can't think of a situation where being in a place to offer a prayer would be a bad thing. I was more afraid of giving offense than of anything else. Although the doctrines, styles of delivery, and temperament of the meeting was like nothing I had ever experienced I was not offended nor frightened. These people loved the Lord or they wouldn't have been there (and stayed there for so long). They were there to pray, to petition the Lord for their neighborhoods and nation. That has to be a good thing, commendable and worthy of support.

God seems to delight in putting me into new places. That's okay. It was an honor to be with them and I wouldn't have hurt their feelings or smirked at their passion for anything in the world. Besides, some of them were law enforcement officers and they had guns.

I might be Fellini Man, but I'm no dummy.

The Talent Show

2006-06-02T07:42:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday morning one of the kids came up to me after my sermon and handed me a prayer request card and a sheet of paper he had been working on throughout the whole service. Nathan has a couple of disabilities and challenges, but he had done as good a job as he could on the folded papers he placed in my hand. I thanked him, hugged him, and went on, not knowing what I'd been given but appreciating it all the same. My wife came up to me a few minutes later and told me Nathan's mother had explained it to her. The papers were a handwritten invitation to his elementary school's talent day. Nathan, she said, knew I loved humor and he and a buddy -- also from our church -- were going to do a comedy routine.

I know what you're thinking. "An elementary school talent day? Why wasn't I invited, too?" Yes, yes, I know, the odds of finding talent in an elementary school talent show are roughly similar to those of finding vows of poverty and chastity among TV evangelists.

I moved some things around and went to the show. You might wonder why the senior minister for a church of 1200 or so, and one which is sending out new Orders of people (see last post) as well as moving to multi-site work would spend his time at an elementary school to watch a talent show. Isn't there something more important for him to do?

Uh.... no.

Some of the acts were predictably bad. Some lip synched to popular songs off CDs they'd brought from home. Two eleven year old white girls danced to an urban hip-hop tune, copying the moves they'd learned from MTV or BET including the crossed arms scowling bits. Others trilled their way -- Mariah Carey-like, if Mariah hadn't been feeling well recently -- through American Idol style pop tunes.

I missed one act, though. Evidently one of our young girls was supposed to dance to a tune with a couple of her friends but she was troubled by the words and movements and asked her parents if she could not do the act, but sing instead. She sang a Watershed song about her Lord instead of doing the dance. Wow. What a girl.

The show stopper was another one of our young girls. Amber had a backup band who did a "School of Rock" style version of Sweet Home Alabama. She was terrific and blew the room away.

And Nathan and Will came out and did their comedy bit. (Sample joke: "What did the alien say to the tabby cat? Take me to your litter") They came out in obnoxiously loud Hawaiian shirts with a Harpo Marx style horn and a tambourine (I know, I know. How did they get in my closet???) and told their jokes with an infectious joy. THEY found this stuff hilarious and, therefore, so did we.

Afterwards I found out that Nathan was so thrilled I had shown up that he kept telling everyone that his preacher was out there. When the show was done he came over to give me a high five and get his picture taken with me.

Yesterday, some people went to an NBA final game. Others went to five star restaurants. I hear tell that Las Vegas was quite busy yesterday, too. And a Tony Bennett concert in Chicago was sold out.

Losers! I got the best ticket in town. I got to see a young girl's faith in action, another girl shine with the talent and personality God gave her, and I got to laugh along with Nathan and Will. I can assure you -- no doubt -- that there was no ticket in town better than this one. And there was no work this minister could have done that day that could have been more important.

Kids? Moms and dads? Very, very well done. You raised good, sweet, and joyful kids. THAT is talent.

The New Circuit Riders...

2006-05-30T07:23:00.000-07:00

I don't hear directly from the Lord in any vocal sense nor do I claim to be a prophet or the son of a prophet. Remember that as I share with you a vision that has been laying claim to my heart and robbing me of sleep for some time now and which I am acting on at last.

How do we get the message of Jesus outside of church walls? [and I am using "church" in its modern day sense of buildings, structures, and programs. I'm aware that isn't its meaning in Scripture so put the keyboards down...] I am calling for a new breed of circuit riders. Let me give you two examples of these people who I am seeking in our congregation and who are stepping up to answer the call.

At our third service, called Mosaic [but which I call "church for people who don't like church"] we have some of the tattooed, pierced, and spiked sitting together on one or two rows near the back. They are delightful people who love the Lord -- and whom I love -- but they don't fit in with the rest of the group. While Mosaic is filled with all kinds of people, there aren't many of "their people" who would walk into a large church building with them. My heart aches for those like these brothers and sisters who love Jesus but who will always feel alone in our churches. So I decided it was time to do something about that. I went to each of our "scruffy" brethren [their name for themselves, not mine!] and told them "I have a mission for you; a calling. We need to talk very soon." And we did.

With the full blessing of this church, each of these, male and female, are being called into ministry. We are wanting them to find ways to reach their friends and we are willing to train and mentor them. They have taken the name "The Scruffy Church" to describe themselves as they speak of Jesus to their friends during jam sessions or at work or at coffeehouses. They still meet with us on Sunday mornings -- their choice -- but they are free to be creative in spreading the good news about our Messiah and they are assured of our love and blessing as they do so. They are new traveling minstrels, wandering friars, a new form of religious order, new circuit riders.

There's also a group in our congregation who understand and appreciate the importance of prayer. Over the years they have experienced great frustration in trying to get the rest of the church to see and know what they see and know. They've tried setting up prayer groups, getting in a speaker on prayer, etc. but it has never "hit" as they wished it would. Rather than let them stew and die in disappointment I felt called to go to them and ask them to become a new religious order, a People of Prayer. Their job would be to fulfill their calling outside of the church's walls. Briefly -- and I'm leaving out a great deal -- they would be called upon to meet together and pray and then to separate and enter the world as prayer warriors, spreading the good news of Jesus one prayer at a time. They would enter a mall with the intention of praying for people and situations they see there [not confronting people or praying audibly with hands outstretched. This isn't for show]. If given the opportunity, they would ask someone if they could pray for them. People almost never refuse a quiet, simple, short prayer of blessing or a prayer for healing and help. The People of Prayer would then gather and encourage each other with their stories, pray for more opportunities, and go out once again.

On Sundays, we intend our worship services to be broken into time and again with stories of how God is working in these new circuit riders' lives. As we see more talent and more calling in our members we will commission them and send them outside the church walls to fulfill their calling. And if those they reach will not come here? Start a church with them "out there" and multiply the faithful in any way possible.

Scary? Not really. What if Jerusalem had decided it was too risky to send out those who were called to ministry? What if they decided they needed to convert Jerusalem first, or sort out the Jerusalem congregation first? If they had thought that way there would still, in 2006, only be one congregation of the faithful worldwide.

Risky? Sure. But Jesus told us to pick up a cross and follow Him. A cross! Something tells me everything about Christianity is supposed to be risky. What new religious orders could we form; not in the old sense of rules and regulations but in a new sense of developing and sending our members to reach the lost, using their talents and passions? For example -- have you seen the Jesus Painter? What would happen if you sent out a dozen Jesus painters to use their gifts in your community to draw attention to, and foment interest in, Jesus?

I believe the called and commissioned are already among us. Loose them and let them go. While we will never convince all the religious consumerists in our congregations to do Kingdom work, many will see the exciting, life changing things going on around them and want to be a part of this new work. Let's risk it. To God be the glory.

Two Prayers for Memorial Day

2006-05-27T16:18:00.000-07:00

These are two prayers known to soldiers and marines. My son has them posted on his myspace page. I thought it appropriate to post something to honor those who paid the ultimate price for their country, their families, and for freedom.

A Soldier's Prayer:

Lord, I ask for courage;
Courage to face and
Conquer my own fears,
Courage to take me where
Others will not go...

I ask for strength,
Strength of body to protect others,
Strength of spirit to lead others.
I ask for dedication,
Dedication to do my job, and do it well.
Dedication to my country,
To keep it safe.

Give me, Lord, concern;
For those who trust me,
And compassion, for those who need me.
And, please Lord, through it all
Be by my side.

A Marine's Prayer:

Almighty Father, whose command is over all and whose love never fails,
Make me aware of Thy presence and obedient to Thy will.
Keep me true to my best self, guarding me against dishonesty in purpose or deed and
Helping me to live so that I can face my fellow Marines, my loved ones, and Thee without fear.
Protect my family. Give me the will to do the work of a Marine, and to accept my share of
Responsibilities with vigor and enthusiasm.
Grant me the courage to be proficient in my daily performance.
Keep me loyal and faithful to my superiors and to the duties my country and the Marine Corps
Have entrusted to me. Make me considerate of those entrusted to my leadership.
Help me to wear my uniform with dignity, and let it remind me daily of the
Traditions I must uphold. If I am inclined to doubt, steady my faith.
If I am tempted, make me strong to resist.
If I should miss my mark, give me the courage to try again.
Guide me with the light of truth and give grant me wisdom by which I may understand
The answer to my prayer.
Amen.

Remember that Memorial Day is not about sales, picnics, beer, and cookouts. Enjoy the day, for those who died would want you to. Laugh, play, eat, and shop if you want to. But take a moment to remember and pray. May we honor all who have given their lives, and their families who were left behind. May God grant them peace.

Reading Lists

2006-05-22T19:52:00.000-07:00

I am about to enter a period of life where I will have to read many books on the same subject. I thought I'd let that world when I left university many years ago. I can remember the wonderful joy I felt when I opened a book I wanted to read rather than one I had to read! Yet... our staff has committed our lives and efforts to evangelizing our corner of Michigan and beyond and we have come to the conclusion that we need to know a great deal more about multi-site churches. Some of us have already traveled to visit multi-sites such as Napierville and all of us have found some books that all of us should read. So... starting next week I will be reading about missional churches and multi-site churches exclusively.

For now, I'll enjoy the books I'm reading. I am loving John Stossel's new book "Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity." It is a very easy and quick read loaded with common sense defusing of media and cultural myths. Alexander Webster and Darrell Cole's book "The Virtue of War" is a wonderful introduction to the Orthodox Church's view of just and justifiable wars (two different classifications). It is an important message from a rarely heard segment of wider Christendom.

Bill Bryson is one of my favorite authors and one of just a handful who can make me laugh outloud. His latest isn't his best, but I am still enjoying "A Brief History of Everything." Get the standard version. The extra special coffee table version is just too unwieldy.

Of course, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, so my thriller of this week is the latest novel by Lee Child in which he brings back former CID and MP Jack Reacher. "The Hard Way" looks to be another winner in the series.

I just finished "The Undercover Economist" and "South Park Conservatives" along with two of Ian Rankin's latest books, one starring John Rebus and the other Gordon Reeve. Good Scottish settings, genuine mysteries, and lots of thrills.

What books are you reading for fun or for study? Don't try to impress everybody -- just share what's good and what's not so good. When I come out from the cave after reading all the multi-site/missional church stuff I'll need some suggestions to bring me back into the mainstream world!

The Never Ending Battle

2006-05-19T07:35:00.000-07:00

This is a retelling of the story of the battle for the souls of Koreans as I heard it from Andree Seu, at that time senior writer for WORLD magazine.

Korea went through centuries of purposeful, intentional isolation. All foreigners were kept away so that their culture could be kept pure, untouched by eil outside influences. Anti-foreigner decrees and anti-Christian decrees had been issued all the way back in the late 1500's but European traders and Christians kept searching for ways into the kingdom. A Dutch Reformed sailor was shipwrecked there in 1628 and a German believer made it there in 1832, but each were sent on their way quickly. Before the German left, however, he told some about Jesus and left behind some tracts and one copy of a Chinese translation of the Bible.

In 1866 the General Sherman, an American trading schooner, barged into the Taedong River intent on forcing the issue of trade. A passenger named Robert J. Thomas threw gospel tracts off the back of the ship. The Korean government reacted immediately and aggressively against the ship. They sent burning ships up against it so that it, too, would catch fire and kill all on board. The sailors and passengers jumped overboard in a vain attempt to save themselves. Thomas reached the shore and shouted "Jesus! Jesus!" The angry mob that awaited any survivors were armed with machetes and set about attacking any they could find. Thomas handed a peasant a Bible but the peasant, after taking the Bible, swung his blade and decapitated the American on the spot. The peasant took the Bible home and use the pages from it to paper a guest room in his humble home. Over the years, he couldn't help but read bits and pieces of it...

And he became a believer. Years later his nephew would graduate from Union Christian College in Pyongyang and serve on a committee to revise the Korean Bible. That is how it was, that one of the men in that mob became the first in a long line of believers.

But there was another man in that mob. He, too, wielded a machete. His name was Kim Ung U. He later had a son named Kim Bo Hyon, who had a son named Kim Hyong Jik, who had a son... named Kim Il Sung.

North Korea is ruled by the great grandson of one of the attackers on the Taedong dock. Faith was planted in Korea by another one of those attackers; a man who came to faith in Jesus as he read his wallpaper.

The age old war between the serpent and his seed and the woman and her seed continues (Revelation 6:9-11 anyone?). Even to this day, Christ and Satan battle over Korea. The July 23, 2003 edition of US News and World Report tells the story of a North Korean supporter of Kim Il Sung who was imprisoned over a minor, trivial infraction. In prison she marveled at the faith of the Christians as they faced torture and death. It struck her so powerfully that she became a believer as well.

The story isn't over. Keep praying. And come, Lord Jesus.

The Cry of the Banshee

2006-05-15T07:21:00.000-07:00

My momma is a wee Irish lady. I call her my "pocket mom." If you asked me to describe her the words "sweet", "kind", "patient", and "loving" would roll off my tongue. After that it would just be repeating myself.

And yet... the thing about women is that they are so wonderfully complex creatures. Men, in contrast, are so simple: feed us and pet us and we are just fine. Women, however, were enough to stump the wisest man that ever lived. Solomon warned his sons that "the ways of a woman are past finding out." And he should know! As a good scientist he had run over 700 experiments in the "getting to know women" program before declaring that even he was baffled and beaten. Women are a fantastic blend of beauty, intelligence, daring, wisdom, drive, passion, grace, gentleness, and power that we men are just in awe of them -- or should be.

A couple of examples from my wee momma. When I was about 4 years old there was a village bully that loved to terrorize me. He was 8 years old and approximately the size of a pub. He loved thumping people and I was his favorite thumpee. One day he knocked me down in my back yard and was jumping up and down on my stomach when I heard the cry of the banshee and noticed that his head had just changed shape. A millisecond later I saw the source of both phenomena. My mother had arrived wielding a broom with more skill than Braveheart ever swung his double-handed long sword. She beat that kid off me, out of the yard, and up the street. I never saw him again. Perhaps, he is still running away. When my momma came back to check on me I couldn't speak. She thought it was because that mean ol' kid had stomped me, but the fact was: I was in shock. Who knew my momma had THAT in her???

Truth: I behaved a lot better after then. I mean, I didn't want to set that beastie off and have it run at me next time, did I?

Before I was born, my mother was told that she couldn't have any other children. She'd borne two daughters but her insides were too messed up so they did a procedure on her and told her that that was it; no more kids. She kept telling the doctors, "But I must have a son. I have to have a preacher." So she prayed the prayer of Hannah, promising God that if He gave her a son, she would give him back, dedicating him to Christian service.

Yes, as hard it as might seem to imagine: I am a miracle. However, I had not been consulted on the deal my momma made with God, so I spent the first 35 or so years of my life trying to renegotiate it. I didn't want to be a minister. I didn't even want to be connected with or involved with the church! I got my degrees in science, formed my networks there, and tried to run from God... but momma was praying. And nobody stands a chance against a wee Irish momma's prayers.

So this Sunday I stood up and preached our three morning services. I praised mothers and patted children on the head. I called people to the Lord's table and we shared in communion. I answered peoples' questions about life, Bible versions, child rearing, and Ezekiel. And at the end of the day I laid in bed and thought about my mother. Her health hasn't been very good recently. At 75, she's had a hard life in mission work and her cup has been overflowing with both pain and joy.

And I prayed for momma.

You see, it's my turn, now.

God Bless the Children

2006-05-13T14:42:00.000-07:00

This will be a strange Mothers' Day at the Rochester Church. Although we have more than 1200 members, we meet in three morning services and there is a powerful sense of family and intimacy in our fellowship. When one suffers, we all suffer.

And some are suffering today. Little Lyndsi has died. Her family welcomed her just over a year ago, adopting her from a far off land. She was a dear little girl, widely loved and fussed over by all of us who knew her. Just a matter of weeks ago she took ill and was taken to hospital by her parents (salt of the earth people, by the way -- wonderful people and wonderful parents). They got a diagnosis none of us expected: leukemia. After an initial fright, the news became a bit better. The doctors were sure they could treat tiny Lyndsi; that she could survive this aggressive disease. That is why it was such a shock to hear yesterday that Lyndsi had died. One day, she was riding her little bicycle. The next day, she was in heaven and her parents were experiencing the worst pain a human can feel.

I cannot get them out of my mind. I will not publish their names or details for their privacy is worth more than any blog or column, but I will ask that you pray for Lyndsi's parents who must wait so very long before they get to see her again. It has made for a painful Mothers' Day -- and will continue to make this day a difficult one for that family in years to come as it rolls around. I have always ached for those who suffer significant loss on a holiday such as this or Christmas. While others rejoice, they will forever remember the tragedy that marked their lives forever.

Children are so precious to me -- and to Jesus -- that I have never been able to understand those who consider them a nuisance or, worse, a "choice." Now, worldnetdaily.com has published excerpts of a letter written by Ron Weddington, one of the attorneys to argue the Roe vs. Wade case before the Supreme Court, urging then President Clinton to use the legality of abortion as a way to "eliminate the barely educated, unhealthy, and poor segment of our country." He goes on to say "I don't think you will get very far in reforming this country until we have a better educated, healthier, and wealthier population." He urged the new president to liberalize abortion laws so that the poor, uneducated, and unhealthy percentage of our population could be wiped out. His language is graphic and without nuance. He celebrated the 30 million abortions that had occurred by that time, arguing that the world was much better off without those births.

How can anyone throw away children so cavalierly? How can anyone mark a population as not worthy to live? How could anyone encourage some of our people to kill their children so that the country will be better off?

And all the time he writes this bloody letter, there are people waiting for the chance to adopt children, there are parents mourning the loss of their children, and there are Christians ready to love and help any expectant mother and her child -- before and after their birth.

Could the differences between us and the "liberal, loving, progressive" left be more plainly writ? God bless the children. And bless them through us, since we may be the best hope -- or the only hope -- they have.

And, God? Tell Lyndsi we love her. And we'll be right up to see her very soon.

Borders, Roads, and Planes

2006-05-08T15:43:00.000-07:00

I'm on the road again this week though, thankfully, it is only a four hour drive west across the State of Michigan and not a series of small planes and borders. I crossed the border on Friday when I spoke in Windsor, Ontario to a group of law enforcement officers. Crossing the border is always nerve-wracking to me for some reason.

Hint: when a border agent asks you if you have any weapons, the WRONG answer is "What do you need?" I must warn you that body cavity searches, after the third or fourth one, lose their novelty. But you do make new friends so factor that in.

The question that always gets me is: "Are you bringing any fruit into the country?" Fruit? Fruit? Do I look like I've ever had a piece of fruit? Are you mocking me, border boy? You just let Muhammed go through with three rifles on his back seat and the distinct sound of ticking coming from his trunk, yet you fear that my Bartlett Pear will bring down civilization?

Of course, I only say that inside my head...

On my last trip I was certain I was beside a suicide bomber. That dude was nuttier than squirrel poop and sweating like Michael Jackson at a Chuckie Cheese.

But I didn't die.

I get to drive to Hastings so I'll take along my laptop, a ukulele, maybe my travel banjo, some books, and good intentions. Perhaps God will bless the trip and my efforts there. He usually does, but He's under no obligation to always spoil me and I know that. Just spoil me a little longer, Lord, then take me off this planet.

But not in a plane. That guy was freaky.

2006-05-06T19:32:00.000-07:00

This is my son, Duncan, standing beside his recruiter, Sergeant White. On the right, he is between the officers assigned to him, Captain Shields and Major Worth. We were at Marine Corps Family Night in White Lake, Michigan.

Hoorah!

Duncan is in the early stages of deciding whether to do Platoon Leader Class, and which university he will choose to do so, or whether he will go the NROTC route. Either way, we're behind him.

To all who wear or have worn the uniform, and to all who carry a badge or warrant card to keep us safe, and to all who pray for them: thank you.

Catching the Wave

2006-05-05T18:35:00.000-07:00

Things are moving fast in our lives and this blog will be the place for people to read about it. Here are some recent highlights.

1. Duncan has begun training with the Marines. Its all simple stuff right now as he isn't even officially in the Delayed Entry Program, but he loves it. People all over the nation are writing letters commending him on his morality, leadership, and character. The letters will go into his file so that he can secure a place in NROTC or the Platoon Leader Program (MECAP). He is psyched, pumped, fit, and raring to go.

2. At Rochester Church over the last week we had a Kevinathon to raise money in memory of one of our own little boys who died several years ago. His parents run our nationally recognized charity, Gods Helping Hands, that feeds and clothes 400-500 people a month. We also had a 4+ mile march for the Global Night Commute on behalf of invisiblechildren.com. Over three hundred people marched. It made the newspapers and TV.

3. Speaking of which -- did anyone else see the praise heaped on the Church of Christ during the PGA tour event on TV last Sunday? They mentioned Richland Hills and the church several times in a ten minute story on the charity work done by our tribe. What a pleasant surprise!

4. I got a call from an elder at a nearby CoC last Wednesday night. He is a law enforcement officer and a graduate of the FBI National Academy. The FBINAA was having their annual luncheon across the Detroit River in Windsor, Canada on Friday... and they just realized they didn't have a speaker. Panic had set in. I agreed to change my Friday schedule and go into Ontario and I'm glad I did. There were about 35 (or, preacher count, 76) officers from various US and Canadian law enforcement agencies present. I met good men and women and assured them of our prayers and God's appreciation for their service. Remember to pray for all who carry a badge or warrant card on behalf of us.

5. This week I will travel to the tiny Western Michigan town of Hastings, MI to give a three day seminar on Christian Evidences. I am often asked why I go to smaller churches instead of bigger venues such as Pepperdine. My answer is -- not everybody will go to the smaller places. I will because I grew up in them. They matter to me. I am happy to do my part for them while my dear friends take the Word to the larger gatherings.

6. I gave a keynote address to the Michigan Christian Convention two weeks ago. I got some hate mail for fellowshipping and loving my brothers in the Independent Christian Church but I'm not complaining. I have not yet resisted unto blood.

God bless all of you. Stay tuned here for personal, political, and theological bits and pieces. Go to tentpegs.blogspot.com for columns on family life, mental health, and child rearing.

2006-02-14T07:56:00.000-08:00

Holly Beach after Rita. Not one building was standing when I

2006-02-14T07:54:00.000-08:00

Holly Beach, LA before Rita. A lovely little resort town.