Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Christian Culture’ Category

Preparing Young Children for Easter Without Rabbits!

Posted in Christian Culture, tagged , , , on March 30, 2012| 2 Comments »

For our children, Easter has become more about baby chickens, bunny rabbits, and egg hunts and hardly anything about Jesus! Part of the reason is that the story is sad, brutal, and gory. We have sanitized the lives of our children to the point that the real Easter story just doesn’t work.  We need a Disney version for our young children.

On the other hand, my 8-year-old, 7-year-old, and 5-year-old grandsons have all seen Star Wars, and some of them have seen at least the first episode of Lord of the Rings. They have all seen the Narnia movies—and they have all been to funerals.  I think they can handle the basics of the passion story.

I’d like to just suggest to you today a schedule of possible readings and activities to do with your young children. You are the best judge about what age is appropriate to participate, but I think you can start younger than you probably imagine.

Each day will have four primary activities:

1.            Create a timeline and put it on the child’s wall or in a place where you do activities. These can be a sheet of paper for each day, or, if you can easily find it, a roll of paper that you can write/draw on.

2..           Read the story from the Bible, if appropriate. You can try the Children’s Bible version or some other easy-to-read version. You also can substitute a storybook version if the children are very young, but use the real Bible if at all possible.

3.            Have your child draw a picture to go with the story that they heard. Talk to them about their picture, letting them explain it to you.  Listen, don’t talk too much.

4.            Do the suggested craft or activity with your child/children and be sure to connect it to the story for the day.

I’ve arranged this so that you can start on Monday, even though the triumphal entry was on Sunday. This will give us an activity to do on Wednesday which was a day of retreat for Jesus.  I hope this adjustment doesn’t bother you. We will keep the timeline we make accurate.

Day Story/Scripture Activity
Sun Entry into Jerusalem  /Matthew 21:1-11 Child should sense joy—doing things that make God happy. Cut branches/tall grasses/have one parent be the donkey and let the child ride while the other parent or other children wave the branches.
Mon Cleansing of the temple/Matt. 21:12-17 Help child understand that Jesus was mad about people disobeying God, but he was not trying to hurt the people! Set up tv trays with coins or other objects “for sale” and let the child go through and knock them over.
Tues Widows Two Mites  /Luke 21:1-4 Your child can learn early to give “all” because you gave them to him/her. Give your child two pennies. You or other children then should drop 10+ pennies into a jar. Your child drops 2 and then you ask who gave more!
Wed (This happened Tues. night, which is Wed on Jewish time. Judas Betrays Jesus for 30 pieces of silver/ Matt. 26:1-5 & 26:14-16 Not only are you telling the story but you are teaching your child that money takes its moral value from how it is used, not how much one has. Bring out the two pennies from yesterday and then bring out 30 dimes or 30 quarters and put them in a sack or bag of some kind. Then ask the child which money was used for good and which for bad.
Thurs Last Supper /Luke 22:7-38  You can talk about how much Jesus loved his disciples. Eating together should be happy, but the one empty chair should be ominous, not mysterious.  Jesus knows what Judas is going to do. Find a recipe on internet and bake unleavened bread together.  If you want, get grape juice and have a little meal together—but leave one chair empty. One of Jesus’ friends with 30 pieces of silver got up and left—what is he going to do?
Friday Crucifixion / Matt. 27:33-50 What you are wanting to convey here is the sadness, not the grimness of Jesus’death. This is tricky and depends on your child/children. I suggest you find a small room which you darken as much as possible, then  light six long-life candles. Take the child in each hr and put out one candle. When the last candle goes out, explain that Jesus died—and it was dark!
Saturday Jesus was buried on Friday, but was in the tomb all day Saturday. The Tomb   John 19:30-42 Just make the point that Jesus was dead and in the grave just like all the dead people in the visited cemetery. Nobody really expected what was going to happen. It would be great to go to a graveyard and just walk for a while, reading what is on the tombstones. No need to make it heavier than the child will.
Sunday Resurrection/  John 20:1-18 Your goal is to create excitement that Jesus is not dead. He is alive! If possible, use the previous room that went dark. Just as the child wakes up on Easter morning, take him/her into the room, bright with sunlight and, if possible, lots of lit candles!

Even if you don’t use these exact activities, perhaps they will spark some ideas. I’d love to hear your ideas for sharing the Easter story with young children.  Let’s pool our ideas and reclaim Easter for Jesus!

This is a repost from 2011, but many new readers will be seeing it for the first time. 

Read Full Post »

WWJD: Would Jesus Wear A Hoodie?

Posted in Christian Culture, What Would Jesus Do Series, tagged , , , on March 28, 2012| 1 Comment »

Cases like the Trayvon Martin killing which occur because of profiling, whether it is racial profiling, class profiling, ethnic or religious profiling, reveal the unspeakable horror that results from looking at the outside of a person rather than the inside.  With what ease we wag fingers, however, then turn around and immediately form our own opinions about people by what they wear, how they talk, or what size they are.

I just heard this morning on ESPN about a defensive line coach that is having lap band surgery because he doesn’t think he will get a head coaching job unless he loses weight.

The movie didn’t bring it out as much, but the book Moneyball  by Michael Lewis (2003) revealed the almost insurmountable tension between the traditional baseball scouts and the new statistically oriented management over what potential ballplayers looked like.  The scouts were choosing future draftees on the basis of their appearance as opposed to their real performance. It was enough to kill someone’s future in professional baseball to just say, “He doesn’t look like a ball player.”

Another video from Britain’s Got Talent has gone viral, although it is the same story, third verse!  Contestants who are unattractive show amazing talent that shocks their mockers.  You may remember Paul Potts, the mobile phone salesman and then Susan Boyle, the frumpy forty-seven year old housewife;  well now there is Charlotte and Jonathan, an unlikely teenage duo who even bring Simon Cowell to his feet in applause.  (Click on these links if you want to see what happened.)

The triumph of these people who do not look like stars always brings tears to my eyes, but I’m embarrassed at the same time that I am one of those who might not have even given them a chance.

I also wonder why this happens often in the UK, and could it ever happen on American Idol?  

Hoodies aren’t that big of a deal! I saw Paris Hilton in a pink hoodie on an airplane from Los Angeles a couple of years ago.  I actually asked for one at Christmas this year—not because of Paris Hilton—and received a nice Under Armour brand hoodie which I wear a lot in cooler weather.

But apparently, if you are the wrong color in the wrong neighborhood, hoodies can be dangerous because we judge people by their hoodies.

Jesus looked at the right-wing terrorist and saw a disciple; he looked at the hated IRS guy and saw a disciple; he looked at some pretty simple fishermen and saw disciples; he looked at outcast women and saw disciples; he looked at cripples and beggars and saw disciples.  He looked at Pharisees and saw disciples.  He looked at foreigners and saw disciples.

If we look at a person and see anything other than a person whom Jesus loves and died for, then we are moving toward the camp of profiling, of bigotry, and of hate crimes. 

We might actually be looking at Jesus with his hoodie on—and never see him!

Read Full Post »

WWJD: Would Jesus Appear On Piers Tonight?

Posted in Christian Culture, tagged , , , , on March 12, 2012| 6 Comments »

Watching Mark Driscoll on Piers Tonight made me uncomfortable.   Mark Driscoll is the founding minister of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, Washington, and one of the best-recognized spokespersons for emergent-type churches, although he has distanced himself from the mainstream of the Emerging Church Movement.

Driscoll has a new book out called Real Marriage: The Truth About Sex, Friendship, and Life Together  that raises some eyebrows because he not only takes a pretty conservative view of women’s roles, but he also addresses married sex quite explicitly—at least this seems to be the part of the book that got him on with Piers Morgan.

It was not the content of his answers that made me uncomfortable, rather the overall manner and potential effect of his responses. In my judgment, Morgan—a somewhat hostile antagonist– kept Driscoll on the defensive which diminished the potential impact of his answers.

Honestly, defending faith in a public arena challenges almost all of us!  Don’t you find that public Christians often come off appearing like boxers backed into a corner, subjectively successful in warding off their opponent’s blows, but mostly hoping the bell will ring soon!

One of the best public Christian defenders I ever saw was Billy Graham. I thought often during the interview that as preparation for Piers Morgan, Driskoll should have watched Billy Graham being interviewed by Phil Donahue and others—often being asked the same questions about hell and marriage and sex.  I watched those old interviews again today as well as the Piers Morgan interview to see if I could determine the difference.

The major difference as I see it is that Graham spoke with authority and Driskoll did not. In response to pointed questions, Driskoll’s sentences started most often with “I believe that . . . ,” whereas, in a short collection of interview clips from Graham’s life,  his sentences rarely start with “I believe”—even when asked directly what he believed.  No, his responses are “Christ taught,” “God says,” and “the Bible teaches.”  More than once, Graham says, “It doesn’t make any difference what I believe” and then proceeds to speak as the oracle of God.

All of this led me to think about Jesus and his responses to public interviews by hostile interrogators!  How did Jesus respond in situations similar to Driskoll’s?  What would Jesus do?

  • Jesus spoke boldly.  The temple guards said, “No one ever spoke the way this man does” (John 7:46)
  • Jesus spoke truthfully.  Almost 80 times in the four Gospels, Jesus begins his sentence with “Truly, I tell you . . . “—and sometimes, “Very truly, I tell you . . . .” Jesus is not “The Opinion;” He is “the Truth!”
  • Jesus did not answer every question that he was asked. Read all of John 7 and see how often Jesus leaves the question of his birthplace unanswered, as well as questions about who he was.
  • Jesus chose his battles, not engaging with every potential antagonist! Again look at the beginning of John 7 and notice that Jesus avoids going to Jerusalem with a crowd, but rather goes secretly.
  • Jesus chose sometimes to be silent. “When he was accused by the chief priests and the elders, he gave no answer. Then Pilate asked him, “Don’t you hear the testimony they are bringing against you?”  But Jesus made no reply, not even to a single charge—to the great amazement of the governor” (Matthew 27:12-14).
  • Jesus always acknowledged His Father as the source of his message. “For I did not speak on my own, but the Father who sent me commanded me to say all that I have spoken” (John 12:49).

Being a public disciple of Jesus is not easy! I’m grateful for the truths that people like Billy Graham or Mark Driscoll speak in public.  In whatever ways we might be questioned or challenged because of Jesus, I pray that you and I both will do what He would do!

Read Full Post »

WWJD: Would Jesus Be Green?

Posted in Christian Culture, What Would Jesus Do Series, tagged , , on March 8, 2012| 3 Comments »

I’m not talking about green like the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz! I’m talking about green as in global warming, hybrid cars, animal rights, and environmental protectionism.

What would Jesus do?  Here’s what I know:

  • Jesus was on the creation team! He made the world.  “Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made” John 1:3
  • Creation has His constant attention. He “sustains all things by his powerful word” (Hebrews 1:3)
  • Creation is His inheritance. “By his Son, God created the world in the beginning, and it will all belong to the Son at the end.” (Hebrews 1:2)
  • Creation will be redeemed.  “The created world itself can hardly wait for what’s coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead” (Romans 8:19-21) —This is The Message but check it out in your own translation and you’ll find the very same teaching.

So the physical world, all of it, is extraordinarily important to Jesus.  But here are some more parts of the puzzle:

  • Jesus was a carpenter’s son. He certainly must have cut down trees and used them for human purposes. (Mark 6:3)
  • Jesus drove the money changers out of the temple, not for selling animals for sacrifice, but for doing business in God’s house.  (John 2:14ff)
  • Jesus was not a vegetarian! He ate the Passover lamb  each year and he ate fish on at least two occasions. (Luke 2:41, Matthew 26; John 21)
  • Jesus helped his disciples catch fish! (John 21)
  • Jesus cursed a fig tree and killed it because it should have had fruit, but didn’t (Matthew 21 and Mark 11).
  • Jesus allowed, even praised the use of nard as a libation for his glory (John 12:3). Nard is from a rare flowering plant in India and China.
  • Jesus rode on a donkey (Matthew 21)for his own purposes. But he also assumed that if an ox was stuck in a ditch, good people would try to get it out (Luke 14).

Would Jesus be green?  I’m not ready to answer yet.

From what I understand, Jesus treasures all creation enough to redeem it with his blood.  Jesus created all life, but only put his breath and his image into people. So I believe that while there is temporal overlap, a qualitative difference does exist between organic life and human life.

Jesus appears to have used the natural world for his purposes, even holding it accountable when it did failed to serve him well  (fig tree incident).  So I don’t think Jesus believes that people are just another element of creation, but rather that we were given the physical world to use—for God’s glory, not for ours.

Jesus would not abuse His creation, His inheritance. He would not destroy creation’s glory for self-gratification, for greed, for power, or for lust.  He did nothing for these reasons. He used the physical world for His glory!

Would Jesus be an eco-terrorist? No!  Would He believe that animal rights and human rights should be the same? No.  Would he be concerned about global warming or ivory poaching? He would be concerned about abuse of His inheritance wherever it was happening!

So, I think my final answer is:  As Jesus did, we should love the creation and use it for God’s purposes and God’s glory.

Does that work for you?

 

 

Read Full Post »

Germany, Jesus, and a Muslim Woman!

Posted in Christian Culture, Christian Missions, tagged , , , on March 2, 2012| 3 Comments »

Germany is really a lot older than the United States. When we lived in Germany, many cities and towns were celebrating 1200 years of documented history. By contrast, when we moved from Hannover, Germany to Oklahoma City in 1979, we were shocked to discover that the city sprang into being just ninety years earlier on April 22, 1889. We saw a television interview with Oklahoma Belle Cheever, the first person ever born in Oklahoma City!

Because Germany is older and because one out of six Americans has German heritage, and like my own family– my great grandparents were born in Germany—what the German immigrants brought with them is still fairly fresh in its social influence, I continually find that much of what goes on in Germany is a foreshadow of what will be a strong tendency in the United States in the not too distant future.

For instance, the rise of theological liberalism and the abandonment of personal faith became currency in Germany in the 19th century, so that by the mid-twentieth century, the Christian churches—especially the protestant Lutheran churches—were socially active, but spiritually empty.

Is the American church on the same path, lagging just a few years behind? 

Another example is that in the place of a strong Christian epistemology, Germans moved to an amoral, secularized social structure, which some might argue produced the horrors of WWII.  With that war only twenty-five years past when we lived there, we were amazed at how virtually everyone we talked with said, “Ich war nicht dabei!”  (I wasn’t involved!)

Our first home in Lohhof on the outskirts of Munich was just minutes away from Dachau.  The smells of the local industries as well as the fertilized fields were all around us on those days when the wind was moving.  But no one had ever smelled anything from a concentration camp in their backyard! No one ever wondered why all those people went in and never came out! I can’t help but believe that a hundred years of secularizing their churches had something to do with the average person’s fear and lack of involvement.

Is a post-modernist America slowly following Germany down a path that has no moral road signs? Is a “whatever” society the forerunner to one where everything from political executions to torture to even worse atrocities could be perpetrated because the majority of people sind nicht dabei?

In the 1950s, Germany needed more laborers to help rebuild it after WWII, so it encouraged immigration from southern Europe, especially Turkey.  First, Turkish men came in thousands, planning to return home with their earnings, but by the early 70s, numbers grew to almost 1 million because they stayed and their families were allowed to join them. By the year 2000, there were 2 million Turkish citizens in Germany. Today, there are perhaps 3-4 million Turks or about 4% of the total population of Germany.

And now Germany is into its second and third generation in some Turkish families, but in 2010, Angela Merkel, prime minister of Germany, declared that integration of the Muslim Turks into German society had “failed utterly.”  She went on to say, “At the start of the 60s we invited the guest-workers to Germany. We kidded ourselves for a while that they wouldn’t stay, that one day they’d go home. That isn’t what happened. And of course the tendency was to say: let’s be ‘multikulti’ and live next to each other and enjoy being together, [but] this concept has failed, failed utterly.” 

A new study has just been released in Germany about the role of Islam in the integration process of Turkish people (both German citizens and non-citizens) in Germany—and it is not encouraging. Read this article from one of Germany’s leading magazines Der Spiegel (English version):

Now what makes this interesting for Americans today is the growth of Islam in the United States. USA Today ran a headline this week that said “Number of U.S. Mosques up 74% Since 2000.”

My two questions as both a Christian and an American are

  1. How can Christians speak the Good News to Islam in a way that it will be heard?
  2. Is increased diversity, specifically a growing Muslim population in the U.S., going to be good for the whole community?

Here is what gives me concern:

There exists a cultural memory of Western, aka, Christian war against Islam summarized in the word crusade, but including so much more than those medieval battles. Islam believes that it is under siege by the West.  You can read this from those who have studied Islamic cultures today, but it is also my own personal experience in visiting and working in Turkey over the last decade. (Read this excellent report on why the Muslim world is mad at America. to better understand what the Muslim world thinks about us.)

We Americans cannot at the same time wage war against Islam and show them we are Christians by our love.  If we choose to abandon our Christianity, opting for a secularized society, one sanitized of Christian values—which is the direction, I believe, our country is obviously going—then I am afraid we are copying the German story with integration, one that does not have a happy ending!

If Jesus were living in Israel today and John were writing his gospel, he would record a conversation in his fourth chapter between Jesus and a Muslim woman at the well!  While Jesus would be offering her living water. his Christian disciples would be shocked that Jesus was even talking to this woman in her burka. Jesus would tell her about her life and describe it to her, but in a way that she did not feel judged or condemned, rather that she had met someone who told her truth!

Sure, she would try to divert the conversation from her personal relationships by saying the Muslims worship Allah, the one true God, and that Christians worship three gods and lead decadent lives! But Jesus would just sweep that whole conversation aside. “It’s not about our cultural wars,” he would say, “it’s about the One God—and it is about the Messiah—and I am he!

The woman would be so taken with what Jesus said that she would drive into her village and tell all her friends and neighbors about the one who told her the truth about her life and who offered her that which would quench her thirst forever.

Speaking the truth in love—just like Jesus did! I think that is the only answer.

Read Full Post »

Does Positive Psychology Know What Happiness Is?

Posted in Christian Culture, Other, tagged , , , on March 1, 2012| Leave a Comment »

While flying back from Nashville last week, I picked up an airline magazine and found myself captured by an article entitled “The Pursuit of Happiness.”  The article opened up a whole new area of psychology to me called “positive psychology.” Positive psychology has been out there for over a decade now, long enough to even have detractors, but the success of a recent publication by Dan Buettner Thriving: Finding Happiness the Blue Zones Way has rekindled the conversation.

Buettner’s conclusions and those of several other well-known positive psychologists are backed with very large and well-documented studies that might be interesting to many of you, so here is the link for further details:  Celebrated Living/Spring 2012

But I want to jump to the conclusions of positive psychology as reported in this article:

  • “The most powerful determinant of happiness is the quality of your relationships with other people.”
  • Money does play a role in happiness, but only up to an annual income of $75,000 at which point no increase in happiness can be measured with further gain.
  • Individuals with altruistic as opposed to financial goals experience greater happiness.
  • Church attendance, participation in social events, and regular exercise increase happiness.
  • Choosing to spend money on others makes people happier than spending it on themselves.
  • Place and your surroundings matter! Beauty does affect people positively.
  • Performing meaningful work makes people happier.

As I was doing some superficial research on this psychological scene, I came across a TED video, recorded in 2004, by Dr. Martin Seligman, whom many designate as the founder of the positive psychology model.  (I can’t help but point out the irony that his Germanic surname means literally “blessed man” or “happy man”!) He claims to have classified the happy life into three distinctive types:

  • The Pleasurable Life – characterized by the accumulation of as many pleasurable experiences as possible
  • The Good Life—characterized by intense engagement with work, play, people, and love that “makes time stand still!”
  • The Meaningful Life—knowing one’s personal strengths and using them for something larger than oneself.

His conclusion is that the Pleasurable Life as a lifestyle brings very minimal satisfaction and is far surpassed by the other two. The Meaningful Life offered the greatest happiness. Interestingly, pleasurable experiences, however, could increase happiness when they were an add-on to both the Good and the Meaningful Life!

My favorite authors on happiness concluded all of this and more long before positive psychology appeared. It makes me happy just reading their writings again:

  • Happy are those who know they are spiritually poor; the Kingdom of heaven belongs to them!
  • Happy are those who mourn; God will comfort them!
  • Happy are those who are humble; they will receive what God has promised!
  • Happy are those whose greatest desire is to do what God requires; God will satisfy them fully!
  • Happy are those who are merciful to others; God will be merciful to them!
  • Happy are the pure in heart; they will see God!
  • Happy are those who work for peace; God will call them his children!
  • Happy are those who are persecuted because they do what God requires; the Kingdom of heaven belongs to them! (All of the above from Matthew 5)
  • How happy are those who have no doubts about me! (Matthew 11:6)
  • How happy are those who hear the word of God and obey it! (Luke 11:28)
  • How happy are those servants whose master finds them awake and ready when he returns! . . . How happy they are if he finds them ready . . . (Luke 12:37-38).
  • Happy are those whose wrongs are forgiven, whose sins are pardoned!(Romans 4:7)
  • Happy are those who do not feel guilty when they do something they judge is right! (Romans 14:22)
  • Happy are those who remain faithful under trials, because when they succeed in passing such a test, they will receive as their reward the life which God has promised to those who love him. (James 1:12)
  • Happy is the one who reads this book, and happy are those who listen to the words of this prophetic message and obey what is written in this book! (Revelation 1:3)
  • Happy are those who have been invited to the wedding feast of the Lamb. (Revelation 19:9)
  • Happy are those who wash their robes clean and so have the right to eat the fruit from the tree of life and to go through the gates into the city. (Revelation 22:14)

 

The words meaningful life and larger than yourself become so much more than just psychological jargon when put into this spiritual framework.

George Bailey may be “the biggest man in town,” and Lou Gehrig may be “the luckiest man alive,” but Christians have the potential and the promise of being the happiest of all people.

 

 

Read Full Post »

Is The Church Having a Bad Kodak Moment?

Posted in Christian Culture, Other, tagged , , on February 27, 2012| 5 Comments »

My dad bought me my first camera in 1956. It was a Kodak Brownie—very simple point and shoot. No flash! I took it to a TCU football game to watch Jack Spikes play. Later, I became the school photographer at Fort Worth Christian, so most of the snapshots in the 1962-65 yearbooks, I took.  Those pictures were taken with my dad’s Yashica camera, but all of them were on Kodak films.

Kodak has been as American as apple pie and Chevrolet—but Kodak is almost gone.

I recently read a very interesting article called “A Century On Film: How Kodak Succumbed To the Digital Age” by Ulrich Fichtner in Spiegel Online International.

In his article Fichtner shows how Kodak grew to be synonymous with the film industry over 132 years, how all of the Oscars from 1928 to 2008 were shot on Kodak film. In the 1970s, Kodak was making 90% of all of the U.S.’s film and 85% of the cameras.  In 1975, it was Kodak who developed the world’s first digital camera.

But around 1980, one of their own vice-presidents reported to the company that unless they made fundamental changes within about thirty years, everything that Kodak was doing would become obsolete and Kodak would be in danger of failing as a business.  That report must have sounded like words from another planet since the company was dominating, hugely profitable, and still growing.

Kodak never found its way into the digital age. The company tried out cheap digital cameras, making digital printers, apparently even thought about making wallpaper and sandpaper—since they were primarily a chemical company, but nothing really worked for them.

The author of this article then writes a very telltale sentence: “Rochester was gripped by an understandable but still fatal attitude: They had given the world pictures from the surface of the moon, they reasoned, so someone else could give it wallpaper.”

I’m reminded of the Churches of Christ in the 1950s and 60s—the one that so many of our current elders and the most respected of our opinion leaders grew up in.  It was a booming religious group. We passed among ourselves statistics that described us as the fastest growing church in the United States. We were among the first groups into war-torn Europe, one of the last out of Saigon. Our Christian colleges had Olympic athletes, and we even had movie stars like Pat Boone who wouldn’t kiss anyone on screen! Those were glory years!

The last twenty years don’t feel like glory years to me. We feel more like a group trying to re-invent itself, searching for something new that will make us relevant.  We tried to become charismatic for a while, but we apparently are too Lockian for that movement to transform us. We have tried and succeeded in joining the worship wars, with some of our best churches even turning instrumental as the key to the future.  Others of our fellowship are abandoning evangelism in favor of redeeming the poor and destitute of this world—a false dichotomy in my view!  Our attempts to re-invent ourselves seem pretty ineffective.

Are we having a bad Kodak moment?  Kodak has not been able to come up with a radical enough solution, so they have now gone into bankruptcy and survive only as a shadow of their former greatness.

The Church is not Eastman Kodak.  While Kodak founder George Eastman shot himself in the head in 1932, the founder of the Church is still very much alive!  Resurrection is crucial to His story and, therefore, should be to ours as well.

You probably don’t like it that I have jumped from talking about the Church of Christ to talking about Christ’s church—but I did that quite intentionally.

Our historical position—and that of our founder as well—is that there is only One Church!  I believe Churches of Christ gave that theological position up sometime in the 1970s. We decided that we were just another denomination, something much less than what we had believed ourselves to have been.

I know why we gave up our claim of singularity! We had been much too exclusive in our claims, thinking that the sign above the door and the mode of baptism—but especially our worship—made us so right that we were the only members of the church of Christ.  Most of us, however, since then have repented of our proud self-righteousness which was our sin.

In our sack cloth and ashes, we, however, have mistakenly diminished His Church! In spite of our prideful abuse of the truth, the gates of hell still have not prevailed against the Church of God! And they never will!

Rather than re-invent the Church of Christ, perhaps we need to rediscover the Church of Christ—the only Body of Christ, the beautiful Bride of Christ. This is the community of faith that is undefeatable, that does not grow weary—and there is only One Body, One Church because there is only One Lord and One God and Father of us all!

Kodak may disappear, but the Church—the only one to which you and I truly belong—will never die!

Read Full Post »

“Kinder and Gentler”–Are Those Presidential Words?

Posted in Christian Culture, Other, tagged , , on February 12, 2012| 2 Comments »

Yesterday, Sherrylee and I visited the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum in College Station, Texas. In recent years, we have visited five of the libraries, and I enjoy it more with each one.  There are twelve official libraries and museums, but Gerald Ford has two—a separate library and museum, so only eleven presidents, the eleven beginning with Herbert Hoover and ending with Bill Clinton, are represented.

After visiting each museum, we leave with a picture of a man, his family, and his work who has had an immense influence on our country and the history of the world. Most of these libraries are built shortly after the end of the presidency they honor, so, in some ways, they lack the purview of a longer, historical evaluation. Those libraries built during the lifetime of the man they portray, however, appear to reflect what the man himself wants his legacy to be, how he sees himself, not his opponents’ views, not the media, and not the judgment of historians.

It is this very personal quality that I found both fascinating and encouraging in the George Bush Library yesterday.  This is a presidency that was not so long ago that it has become mythical, nor so recent to still be part of the political debate. He is still alive—not thriving according to reports, but then he is 87 years old.

I saw him at a Texas Ranger ballgame a while back, but my favorite memory is from March 1992, when I heard him speak on the campus of Oklahoma Christian during his re-election campaign–one of the most beautiful March days I ever remember. The Bradford pear trees were at the peak of their bloom and the bright sun just barely knocked the chill off early spring. For a decade after that, I measured the advance of spring by that day in March that President Bush came to our campus.

Two things stood out to me after two hours in President Bush’s Presidential Library and Museum.  First, I never knew how much his personal faith in God penetrated his life and presidency. At every turn, the exhibits very quietly but explicitly testify to his faith in God .  The section on his parents mentions not only regular church attendance but that each day the family read the Bible together and prayed together. The ordination certificate of Bush as an elder in the Presbyterian church during his oil days in Midland, Texas, hangs in the middle of his early business career exhibit.

You probably don’t remember that his very intentional first act as president, just a couple of minutes after taking the oath of office, was to lead the nation in prayer.  Here are his words:

And my first act as President is a prayer. I ask you to bow your heads:  

Heavenly Father, we bow our heads and thank You for Your love. Accept our thanks for the peace that yields this day and the shared faith that makes its continuance likely. Make us strong to do Your work, willing to heed and hear Your will, and write on our hearts these words: “Use power to help people.” For we are given power not to advance our own purposes, nor to make a great show in the world, nor a name. There is but one just use of power, and it is to serve people. Help us to remember it, Lord. Amen

 

His library is amazingly full of expressions of personal faith during his presidency. Did you know that President Bush built a chapel at the presidential retreat Camp David and was the president who first initiated regular worship services there?

Second, I heard a war hero who flew 58 attack missions in WWII, a man who was shot down by the Japanese and barely escaped with his life, a man who directed the Central Intelligence Agency and who was the ambassador to the United Nations during the Cold War, call in his inaugural address for a “kinder . . .  face of the Nation and gentler  . . . face of the world.”

Some have accused him of being a wimp, for not having the guts to finish off Saddam Hussein, for instance, in Desert Storm.  I read his first words as President—the most powerful man in the world—and I don’t hear someone longing for power. I hear someone who feels blessed with power, not because he deserves it, but as an opportunity to do good in his neighborhood.

I really like “kinder and gentler”. We need that not only in the political rhetoric today, but in the hearts of our political leaders.  I suspect the daily Bible reading and prayers and the “kinder and gentler” thing are part of the same package.

I’m glad to have learned this about George Bush. It is not the whole story, perhaps, but it is part of his story that he wanted told on the walls of his library.

Thank you, Mr. President.

As we are taught to pray for the leaders of our country, so we pray for you and Mrs. Bush and give thanks for the good you have done in this world.

Read Full Post »

A Great Non-Christmas Movie To See!

Posted in Advent 2011, Christian Culture, tagged , , , , , , on December 20, 2011| 2 Comments »

I just have to break into the Christmas blogs to tell you about the movie we saw last night! An attorney friend of ours recommended Hugo  to us, so we used two of the grandkids as an excuse to go see it. Without a doubt, Hugo was one of the most enjoyable films I have seen in a long time!

Hugo is about an orphan boy trying to understand life after his father dies.  But it is also about an old man (Ben Kingsley) trying to understand life after his creative work disappears.  So, you see, it is not just another sappy story about little orphan Annie, nor is it On Golden Pond. And I didn’t even mention the subplots involving the policeman and the flower lady or the dachshund owners or the protective wife or the academic,  or  . . . . just so many interesting characters.

Martin Scorsese directed this film that Johnny Depp produced. What does that tell you?? Just that two of the most talented people in the film business invested their talent and money into a relatively small film. Why would they have done that?

What the trailers and the synopses don’t tell you is that this little film is also a tribute to the earliest days of cinema.  The more you know about cinema at the turn of the 20th century, the more you will enjoy the film.  Just a hint:  if you don’t know much and would like to read a little before watching the movie, read the Wikipedia article on Georges Melies.

The photography is beautiful.  Be sure and notice the artistry in the train station scenes. The recurring images of clocks and trains are not only interwoven into the storyline, but they too are allusions and homages to early films.

Our grandkids liked the part about the automaton best! The magic and illusion of cinema is at its best in this film.  And the young hero’s conclusion that there are no extra parts in machines, i.e., that each part has an essential purpose was easy conversation on the way home. God didn’t make extra people with no purpose! Everyone has a purpose and things to do: “for we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (Ephesians 2:10)

It may not be a Christmas movie, but there is a message of hope and peace that you will savor! This movie was so good that you can borrow some of our grandkids if you need an excuse to go!

 

Read Full Post »

Christmas Shorts: Is Mission Impossible A Christmas Movie?

Posted in Advent 2011, Christian Culture on December 17, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Where are the Christmas movies?  They are just gone!  I’m not quite sure why the big adventure movies like to release at Christmas time, like Lord of the Rings, Avatar, Harry Potter in the past and this year – WOW—look at all the releases of adventure/action movies:

Dec 9     –              Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Dec. 16 –              Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows &  Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

Dec. 21    –              The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo &   The Adventures of Tintin

Dec. 25     –            Warhorse  &  The Darkest Hour

No Christmas in sight! A couple of family-oriented movies are being released like We Bought A Zoo with Matt Damon and Scarlett Johansson and Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked , but no big Christmas movies like Polar Express or Elf.

Of course, it’s a great time to release films because kids are out of school and everyone wants to do special fun things together, like go to the movies!  Lots of tickets to sell.

So maybe Christmas themes are too heavy with family values to be interesting! Or maybe Hallmark Channel has the corner on cheesy Christmas films and has spoiled the market. Or maybe no one is writing good Christmas stories, so Hollywood has no new material.

I think someone ought to take Anne Rice’s book Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt and turn it into a movie. It certainly could include the nativity narrative although the book begins during the childhood of Jesus in Egypt, but there are many references to the mystery in his family about why they fled to Egypt. No one wants to tell the young boy about all the babies who were killed because of him. . . .  I won’t tell too much, but I do recommend both of her Christ the Lord books to you!

We saw Mission Impossible last night at the IMAX theater. As opposed to some of the earlier MI movies, this one is fun! Lots more humor and comic relief. In fact, it sometimes borders on slapstick, so don’t go into it expecting that Dark Knight experience.  I also suggest seeing it at an IMAX if you can. Especially the outdoor shots of Budapest and Dubai are breath-taking and the shot downward from the Dubai skyscraper will have you holding on to your seat to keep from falling off!!

In spite of market forces, before Christmas Day, Sherrylee and I will watch It’s A Wonderful Life, A Christmas Carol¸ and maybe Miracle On 34th Street.   I’ll tell you why later!

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »