Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Generosity Can Be Like Pulling Teeth!

Posted in Other, Uncategorized, tagged , , , on September 6, 2012| Leave a Comment »

ImageFund raising—and giving—can be like pulling teeth! But when you pull them with a rocket, it’s a whole new experience!

Before we go any further, you need to watch the first part of this video—just the first minute and thirty seconds is enough!  VIDEO

Let’s Start Talking traditionally has used September for special fund raising efforts. We call it our Month of Generous Giving.  Most years, we are simply trying to make up budget deficits so that we can end our fiscal year in the black.

This year is special!  LST has been given a huge gift—a kind of matching gift in a way.  Last May, we were put on notice that we would have to vacate the office space that we have occupied for the last eleven years because the owners of our building were closing it.

While driving home in July, I noticed a “For Sale” sign in front of the Mid Cities Church building, so I called one of the elders to inquire. He told me they were selling their building for 1.26 million dollars—but that they really appreciated Let’s Start Talking and would sell it to us for much less.

On August 16, we signed a contract to purchase this building for just over 50% of the asking price. The leaders of that church gifted the ministry with a building worth twice as much as what we will pay for it.

What does this mean for LST? 

  • A nice new home in a central location with plenty of room to grow into the future!
  • Our own large training and event area. The auditorium seats 250 and is attached to a large kitchen.
  • More room for special uses like web conferences, recording/video studio, and continuous FriendSpeak usage.
  • A strong financial asset.

It also means that we need to raise an additional $104,000 for our down payment this month!

Those of you who are very sharp will now see the connection between the video and fund raising. It’s only taken me four days to figure it out:

  • The little boy had a big idea, but had to completely trust his father to accomplish it!  I’m the kind of person who has lots of ideas—some that work and many that don’t—but it was a wonderful day in my life when I gave the burden of success over to God and learned that “the horse is made ready for battle, but the victory belongs to the Lord” (Proverbs 21:31)
  • The boy had to push the button!  The dad could have done everything, but he asked the boy to make the decision and push the button.  God’s sovereignty does not make us Christians passive, as some would argue; rather, He has entrusted us to choose and to act upon those choices.  We have signed this contract and made commitments, believing that our Father wanted us to push this button.
  • The moment came suddenly!  Even though the preparations were made and even though the boy had to push the button, the actual moment of launch and loss of the tooth were sudden and surprising!  We were not even dreaming of purchasing in May, and our first inquiries with banks about financing were unanimously discouraging.  This new building burst on the scene unexpectedly, and within days we not only were able to come to agreement with the selling church, but we had secured initial financing from a local banker.  And now we are moving in on September 15!!
  • I think I see first fear, then thrill in the little boy’s eyes!  And I know how he feels. This may always be how people feel who are learning to walk with God.  You may feel this way too when you think about a gift more generous than you have ever given before! It’s scary sometimes to walk with God—but the thrill will follow!

I don’t want to stretch this metaphorical essay too far.  You certainly will have your own feelings about the video and what it says to you.

Let me just say that in this Month of Generous Giving at LST, we are blessed to receive not only the love and affection of thousands of people who make both large and small contributions, but each year, we are given a front row seat to watch and experience the goodness of God!  He is the Giver of every good gift (James 1:17).

Fund raising—and giving—can be like pulling teeth! But when you pull them with a rocket, it’s a whole new experience!

 

If you would like to make a donation to help LST during our Month of Generous Giving, just click here DONATE.

Read Full Post »

Fridays With Isaiah: Chapter 1 — The Leaves Faded On Bilbo’s Oak Tree!

Posted in Fridays With Isaiah, Uncategorized, tagged , , , on August 10, 2012| Leave a Comment »

I personally am going to be spending time with Isaiah for a while. My interest is not driven by anything external, like teaching a class or even pursuing a particular question or theme; rather, I’m interested in just listening to the Word—just listening—and hearing what He says to me today.  Sharing with you will help me understand better what I’m hearing, so I hope you’ll look forward to Fridays.

Chapter 1: 1-4 – “I reared up children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against me.”

I really love my kids. I loved them when they were little and bouncing on us in bed. I loved playing ball with the boys and going to Emily’s music events when they were teens—and I love them even more now as adults.  I can only think of one occasion in recent years when I thought I had really offended one of them, and I was appalled! I could not rest until I had gone and apologized—which proved to be unnecessary, but I didn’t care. I would have done anything in my power to restore what I perceived to be a tiny chink in our relationship.

What pain God our Father must feel who has given us life, reared us up, guarded us, fed us, and loved us in every conceivable way—what pain He must feel at his children’s rebellion, “children given to corruption” (v.4).  How much pain do the parents of these recent shooters feel?  Just the pain of the loss of your children would be horrible, but put on top of that the pain of their victims for whom every parent would feel responsible, and then to add a child’s resentment and rebellion toward you would be almost unbearable.  God’s pain did not start on the cross!

Chapter 1: 5-9 – “…only wounds and welts and open sores.”

Many speculate that any remains of Sodom and Gomorrah—the two ancient symbols of total depravity—lie at the bottom of the Dead Sea—death, death, and more death!  Isaiah appears to write to a remnant which has survived. I once read a fictionalized version of Jesus bringing Lazarus out of four days of rotting in his tomb, which conjectured about how nauseating his skin appeared and how frail he was as he recovered from death.  I doubt that is really what happened with Lazarus, but it might be the condition of this wounded and sore remnant in Israel.

Chapter 1:10-17 – “When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide my eyes from you.”

If Isaiah’s readers thought they were going to get off with just the threat of becoming like Sodom and Gomorrah, they were wrong. Isaiah begins the next section by addressing them as “you rulers of Sodom.”  Their worst nightmare was more than a dream! It was already reality!

And their religious rituals were MEANINGLESS!  Worse, they were offensive—“my soul hates . . . “—God will not hear their many, many prayers because they left their prayer shawls on the pew and went out the door and did more evil.

Stop doing wrong, learn to do right!  What part of these seven words do we have trouble understanding???

Chapter 1:18-20 —  “If you are willing and obedient.”

We used to sing an old hymn based on verse 18 “Though Your Sins Be As Scarlet.” We don’t sing or talk much about our sins any more—too bad, because it is hard to understand that you are made white as snow unless you know what scarlet and crimson mean!

Chapter 1: 21-28 – “Zion will be redeemed with justice.”

Your beautiful little baby girl . . . has become a harlot. She has no hope within herself of ever breaking out of her filthy life—but the LORD ALMIGHTY loves her—and me—enough to purge us of evil and redeem us with justice.  Purging may be painful, but so was justice!

Chapter 1: 29-31 – “like an oak with fading leaves”

These last verses of Chapter 1 are addressed to those who continue to rebel. Ultimately, they will be broken and perish (v.28), but even before that they will be ashamed and disgraced.

A beautiful oak tree is a splendid tree.  We were recently in New Zealand and visited Hobbiton, one of the outdoor sets for Lord of the Rings and the coming The Hobbit movies. Bilbo’s hobbit home sits under a beautiful oak tree, as described by J.R.R. Tolkien, so Peter Jackson, the director, had to produce a hobbit hole with a beautiful oak tree above it for verity in his films. Everything was perfect about this particular site in New Zealand except no oak tree! Fortunately, they found a beautiful oak tree about five miles away, so they cut it down, stripped its leaves, carefully dismembered it into hundreds of fragments, transported it all to the set, then reassembled the oak tree with nuts and bolts.

Of course the beautiful oak tree had no leaves—because it was dead, so 250,000 artificial oak leaves were shipped in from Japan and carefully attached to the tree—individually—to make the tree appear to be alive.

The beautiful oak tree of LOTR rotted, however, and the leaves faded in the decade between LOTR and The Hobbit, so that they were removed and replaced with an artificial trunk/branches and new leaves for the second film.

Those who rebel and resist the love and the purging of the LORD ALMIGHTY are like dead oak trees, which sometimes can be bolted together and life faked for a while, but eventually will rot and fade because they are dead.

The mighty man will become tinder and his work a spark; both will burn together with no one to quench the fire.

Isaiah, you frighten me! 

Read Full Post »

It’s Winter In Australia, But Very Warm!

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on July 29, 2012| 4 Comments »

Sherrylee and I were invited to participate in the first South Pacific Conference on Missions, organized on behalf of the churches in the Restoration Movement in Australia and New Zealand.  It wasn’t a large gathering, perhaps 50-60 different people by the end, but what a wonderful group of people!

A good percentage of the participants represented the independent Christian church workers, perhaps an equal number from the Churches of Christ (non-instrumental), and then several from the remnant from the International Church of Christ movement in Australia. Although a number of these representatives knew each other either by name or from hearing about their work, quite a few new relationships were formed among the participants and much was learned about the work going on in these different streams.

If that was all that happened in this short three-day conference, it would have been worthwhile, but, in fact, much more took place.

On Thursday, Sherrylee and I were responsible for the whole day’s pre-conference workshop. In the morning, we brought our LST experience with knowing yourself better so that you know how you will work within groups to the table. By the time we broke for a late lunch, people were talking about what it meant to their work since they were a “Mission Impossible” or a “Cautious Lover”.

For the afternoon the coordinator Peter Gray had asked us to talk about leadership training in the churches, but considering the audience of leaders in the room, we decided to start with the axiom that you will not be able to train good leaders until you are a good leader, so we presented our work on “1A Leadership” which we have practiced for years with LST—you know, the leadership style based on the “one another” passages in the New Testament.

Once again, it became very apparent to me how often leaders mistakenly think that somehow their position exempts them from those very clear “one another” passages.

Sherrylee taught the women on Friday about women in ministry, and Saturday morning I shared with the group the characteristics of great missional churches (If you are interested, you can find the core material for these in my blog categories!).

But we were inspired by the tremendous work done by some of the people in the room. One brother is deeply committed to working with the aboriginal people in Australia. Another has a terrific ministry through music with juveniles who live on the streets.  Another brother has led a church planting ministry in New Zealand for 12 years, and then there is Phil, 70 years old perhaps, who has preached all over the world, conducting weeks of tent revivals, but who unselfishly brought a young preacher from India to the conference to introduce him to the church leaders there.

It’s winter in Australia; the temperatures were in the 50s and 60s—a wonderful change from our Texas heat—but the love and warmth in this conference were unmistakably a sign of growing unity and cooperation among these Christians.

They will know we are Christians by our love! Kudos to the Aussie and Kiwi Christians for bravely stepping out in faith and love.

Yesterday we arrived in Kuching, Malaysia, for the Asia Mission Forum, where we expect to find the same Spirit.

Read Full Post »

Guest Post: Is Your Church A Bad Hospital?

Posted in Uncategorized on July 27, 2012| 1 Comment »

My son-in-law Tim Spivey, senior minister of New Vintage Church in Escondido, California, sent out a tweet last week that drew quite a bit of response. One of Tim’s great strengths is that he is not afraid to say what is true. In his latest blog, he expands and explains his short tweet, and I think you will find it quite challenging.

“The healthy leave unhealthy churches and the unhealthy leave healthy churches. Pay attention to who leaves, not just who arrives.”

There has never been a church no one has left. Every church “loses” people. Nevertheless, a fear of losing people keeps many churches from doing what needs to be done. They don’t correct the out-of-line elder. They don’t transition a chronically lazy or divisive staff member. They don’t correct the person who gossips and slanders. They fail to do what needs to be done for one simple reason–fearoflosingpeoplephobia. In falling prey to this dreaded disease, a church virtually guarantees they will lose people, except they will lose healthy people and keep the unhealthy. That will lead to an unhealthy church culture orienting the church around the unhealth of the dysfunctional, rather than around the health of leadership.

While no church wants to lose people, it’s a reality if you are healthy—not just unhealthy. If you don’t lose certain kinds of people, you will still lose people—just the healthy members of your church. You’ll be left with a bad hospital–lots of patients and no doctors. God will not bless such a hospital, for when the scarcity mindset trumps biblical instruction to correct, rebuke, etc., God’s Word is taking a backseat to feelings and fear.

Caveat: I’m not saying the church should only admit the healthy. I’m saying the church should be healthy and if it is, the sick will get better. The church should always reach out to the emotionally/spiritually sick. After all, we are disciples of Jesus, the Great Physician. However, letting the sick run off the healthy and infect others with their illness isn’t the ministry of healing. The sick not interested in health will leave. That’s OK.

Save “hospital” ministry for those wanting to get better, and pay close attention to comings and goings of doctors. Hospitals with all patients and no doctors become morgues. A true hospital is one in which the sick are brought to health. Health is the aim of any true hospital. Fulfill that role. If someone is sick but dressed like a doctor (a church leader, for example), move them to a hospital bed before they infect the other doctors. Move them toward health, as well.

Churches often take losing people as a bad sign–and it certainly can be. They also typically want to know where new growth comes from. This is also good. However, it’s at least equally important to watch who leaves. Don’t assume they are “just not committed.” Don’t let yourself off the hook right away. Ask yourself if they are healthy or unhealthy–and be fair to them. Look back three to five years at the people who have left. If they were sick, you may actually be a hospital. If they were mostly healthy, then it may be you that is sick. It’s time to change. If you don’t, you’re on your way to operating a leper colony, not a hospital–and certainly not a church.

I know this language is strong–but health is a matter of life and death for churches. It’s about honoring God in leadership by saving the beds for the truly sick, and carrying out a true ministry of healing on behalf of the Great Physician–who once asked, “Do you want to get well?” to a man lame since birth. If He can ask it, we can ask it of the chronically anxious, the liar, the gossip, the slanderer, or the immature.

In fact, we must. Or, we aren’t engaging in a ministry of healing at all. We are contributing to long-term or even terminal spiritual illness.

 

If you would like to engage with Tim or read more of his writing, visit his blog at www.newvintageleadership.com

 

Read Full Post »

Going Up and Under

Posted in Uncategorized on July 21, 2012| 1 Comment »

Sherrylee and I are at DFW, waiting to board a flight to Sydney, Australia, where we are teaching and speaking at a missions conference next week.  Following that conference, we leave for Malaysia and the Asian Mission Forum.  From there we fly to New Zealand to visit with Steve and Gil Raine and the South Pacific Bible College.

As is my practice, I will try to take you with me on this trip, but as always, I beg for your patience with the irregularity.

It’s time to board, so we’ll talk again from down under!!

Read Full Post »

A Common Love For Each Other — Really?

Posted in Christian Culture, Other, Uncategorized, tagged , , , on June 12, 2012| Leave a Comment »

A good place for conversation.

We need a new word! We’ve called them retreats, advances, weekends, and other things, but we need a good positive word that implies building a collection of common experiences with people that we go to church with, but that we don’t really know that well outside of church.

I’m writing as the sun is coming up on Sunday morning over Lake Granbury. The sky is that pinkish orange in the east, the birds are awake, so the cicadas are toning it down, lest they become breakfast for the birds. The morning breeze is just enough so that I can sit here on the balcony in my pajamas and be comfortably cool on what may be one of the hottest days of this year by late afternoon. We’ll be home by then!

Sherrylee and I have spent the weekend with three other couples and one single man, all members of our small group from church. Two couples we have known for several years; one couple joined our group just nine months ago, and the single man came into our lives even more recently.

For two years now, we have been saying that the only way to really get to know people at church is to share common experiences outside of church—but that’s easier said than done.  Finally, about four months ago, we committed to this weekend—and still two other couples could not make it work.

Our goal was to be together, to get to know each other, to build each other up, and to build an album of common experiences that will grow more meaningful as we live and worship and serve together in the future.

If you are younger, you might be surprised to learn that it is hard for older people to make new friends—real friends, not just new acquaintances.  Sherrylee and I moved to Fort Worth eleven years ago. We left the place where our kids grew up and went to school, so we left their friends and the parents of their friends with whom we had shared so many school programs, soccer games, and musicals.  We left our friends and colleagues at Oklahoma Christian, our friends at church, all of the people who knew us and our history for the previous two decades.

We came to a new place, but one where I had grown up, so I knew people, and people have known me and my family from my youth. We came to a wonderful church—but most of the people had friends already, and almost everyone had family near.  At our age, people are spending lots of time with either elderly parents, newly married children, or—best of all—grandkids!  And many have all of the above to fill their lives!

Sherrylee and I are doing the same—which doesn’t leave a lot of time and opportunity to build those more-than-superficial friendships that characterize most of our relationships at church.

And yet we still not only long for deeper relationships, we need them for our own spiritual well-being.

So our small group committed to this weekend away together, and it has been wonderful.  Here are a few suggestions in case you might want to do something similar.

  1. Get out of town, but not so far away that it costs a lot to get there or you spend all your time traveling. We opted for Granbury—about an hour outside of Ft. Worth—over East Texas which is much prettier—for this reason alone.
  2. Watch your costs, but don’t make it so cheap or primitive that you are spending all your time trying to save money or be comfortable.  We rented a house from VRBO.com for much less per person than we could have stayed at a resort or hotel. Staying at a house gives you a big living room where you can all sit around and talk,a kitchen and table where you can prepare meals and sit down together without worrying about restaurant disturbances—whenever you want to! And it gives you enough privacy for more intimate conversations if needed.
  3. Don’t overplan your schedule.  Sherrylee made sure I didn’t overplan, which is probably my tendency.  Having a pretty open schedule let us make plans as we go, creating more shared experiences. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t line up a few options ahead of time, however.
  4. Don’t cut your time too short!  We arrived about 3:30 on Friday and will leave by noon today (Sunday), all we could squeeze out of the weekend since most of us still have to go to work on Monday.  A one-day Saturday outing might have worked, but having two evenings to sit around and especially a full morning on Saturday was perfect.
  5. Don’t leave God out of your fun together!  We’ve talked about church, we’ve discussed our own spiritual issues, and we have prayed together. These things all happened pretty spontaneously in our group.  In addition, however, we brought the Gospel of John DVD, a wonderful word-for-word visual rendition of the gospel,  and watched it each evening before we went to bed. This morning after breakfast, we will watch Jesus celebrating His last Passover supper and finish the story as John tells it, after which we will break bread together and pass our own cup just as Jesus did.  We will ask for God’s blessing on our community as Jesus did on His small group the night before He died.
  6. Don’t do it just once.  Make the building of common experiences a tradition in your small group or with those you want to grow near.

The sun is up now, so I have to go help with French toast.  Don’t give up on having real friendships.  Maybe all you need is a trip to Granbury.

Read Full Post »

Blessed Are the Dead

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on May 22, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Her name was Joyce Blackman Johnson, but everyone except her one still-living brother called her Joy—and rightfully so.  Sherrylee and I named our third child Emily Joy after her!  Emily and Tim named their oldest daughter Anna Joy.  Our family benefits from a lot of Joy, and most of the story began with Joyce Blackman Johnson—Granny Joy.

Joy Johnson and her family (1996)

“Blessed are the dead . . . . (Revelation 14:13).   We non-Catholics usually want to finish the preceding verse in order to encourage living well until the very end of our lives.  The catholic and orthodox churches have a much more highly developed awareness of the dead saints, soliciting from them whatever form of intercession is still available to them on our behalf. If we ask living saints to pray for us, and if we believe in life after death, then it really doesn’t seem so far-fetched as I may have believed to ask for the prayers of saints on the other side as well.

Fifteen years ago yesterday, we buried Joy Johnson.  After a long and lingering time of dying, she passed peacefully in her sleep on the night that our Emily Joy graduated from high school.  The family gathered quickly in Columbus, Mississippi, where she and Max had served the church for many years. We buried her under an old tree in a new part of the old cemetery in Columbus, the one known for its Civil War graves.  We buried her on her 70th birthday.  The dogwoods were in full bloom; the day was beautiful.

And Joy was perfected—by the grace and mercy of her Father.

Joy had known she would die soon for quite some time. Her cancer had made it impossible for her to eat and properly digest food. The doctors operated once hopefully, but when the cancer recurred, they said that further intervention would not be effective. So Joy said she wanted to go home.

She lived the last two months of her life with unforgettable faith and confidence that nothing bad was getting ready to happen, rather that for which she had lived her life.  None of us will ever forget the day we all went to the funeral home to make final arrangements.  Yes, of course, Joy was with us. She would never have let us go without her!

We first picked out the casket, not the most expensive, but the one with the right color lining that would not clash with the blouse that she had already chosen to wear!  Chuck, a lay Baptist pastor who also worked at the funeral home, unfortunately tried to change her mind on the blouse color—bless his heart—but immediately bumped into the determined strength that characterizes all the Joys that I know! He will be forever know in our family lore as Chuck, the Baptist, bless his heart!

After settling everything at the funeral home, Joy and her daughters went to a little boutique in Columbus to shop for a scarf for her to be buried in.  “Good morning, Miss Joy” the nice lady at the store said. “How can we help you today?”

“Well, I’m looking for a scarf that will go with an accrue blouse as well as the coffin lining that I’m going to be buried in. Can you help me?”  The poor lady did her best not to gasp, but she was obviously a lot less at ease than Joy was with her imminent death.

As she grew smaller and weaker, so many people came to visit her. The hospice nurses would sometimes stay much longer than required, just to visit with Joy.  The Pentecostal neighbors came to try to heal her—and Joy, completely confident that God had another kind of healing in mind, nevertheless allowed their expressions of love and faith—although she did kind of roll her eyes when they weren’t looking.

Max and her children surrounded her in her last days as delirium began to take over—but even then she gave us some terribly funny moments.  Once Max and Phil were trying to change her sheets and accidentally rolled her out of the bed! After they got her back in, she said, “Max, am I in hell?”

Her most common delirious thought was that she had already died and was at her own funeral. Sherrylee played some beautiful Taize music on the CD player, thinking this would soothe Joy’s spirit, but after a while, Joy, only half-conscious, calls out, “Max, Max, I didn’t really want Catholic music in my funeral!”

She also thought that every time the doorbell rang, that someone was bringing a casserole to the funeral!  She was quite concerned that we had way too many casseroles.

On her final day, she woke up at some point feeling great! She sat up in bed and said, “Max, let’s call the doctor and tell him that I’m well!”  Then she said she wanted to sing, so she launched into all the verses and chorus of “I’m Pressing On the Upward Way” – which some of you will remember. She sang it all, ending with “Lord, plant my feet on higher ground!” and then she lay down, closed her eyes, and did not wake up again until she was with God.

Fifteen years ago, her Father planted her feet on higher ground. We miss Joy, but she is still very much with us.  The dogwoods are blooming in Mississippi again, but she is not there! She’s laughing and singing, saved by His grace, but bringing Him glory.

Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord  . . . .

 

Read Full Post »

Guest Post: “Why Is Jesus Worthy” by Richard Oster, Jr.

Posted in Bible Study, Christian Missions, Other, Uncategorized, tagged , on March 27, 2012| Leave a Comment »

 Dr. Richard Oster, professor at Harding School of Theology, has a topic-specific blog called 7 Subversive Letters which opens the letters to the seven churches recorded in Revelation 1-3 in a very enlightening way.  These short writings hint at what is soon to become a book on the same topic.

I recommend to you both Dr. Oster and his blog.  I hope this taste will encourage you to investigate his writings further.

WHY IS JESUS WORTHY?

by Dr. Richard E. Oster, Jr.

I suppose that this question has more than one answer.  It is clear that John the prophet embraces the conviction that the Messiah Jesus is worthy. One of the best known and favorite perspectives on this topic is given in Revelation 5:12 where John relates Jesus’ worthiness to the fact that he was slain to redeem humankind: “Worthy is the Lamb that was slaughtered to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” (Rev. 5:12).  Believers are probably attracted to this perspective because it reminds them of Christ’s sacrificial death and bloodshed on their behalf.

In our enthusiasm for this popular interpretation of Christ’s worthiness there is a related idea given by John that has sometimes been overlooked.  In Rev. 5:9 John writes, “You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.” There are really two points in this verse; there is the traditional understanding focused upon Jesus’ vicarious death and secondly Jesus’ worthiness because of the global consequences of his death for the Christian mission.  In making this second point John tries to move the readers beyond two typical misunderstandings. The first of these tendencies is one that hides and secludes salvation from others because of feelings of nationalism or ethnocentrism.  The second misconception that John’s teaching combats is the idea that converts to Christianity are there to bolster the agenda, needs, programs, and budget of the church.  John’s emphasis is upon the fact that Christ’s role in the first instance is to purchase man and women “for God.”  The church never owns Christian converts; their only rightful owner is God.

It has been easy for a complacent church at times to laud, magnify, and praise Christ for his redemptive work on the cross, but manifest less enthusiastic about a commitment to the style of globalism in missions contained in the words “from every tribe and language and people and nation” (Rev. 5:9b).  One does not need to have advanced theological training, or even know Greek and Hebrew, to realize the necessary connection in the heart of God between a believer’s embracing the personal benefits of salvation and then showing a commitment to the globalization of those benefits.

Living in an empire such as Rome’s, a believer would clearer and frequently see the signs of Roman colonialism in Roman artwork recorded on coins, in statues, and on major monuments.  Christians knew they lived in an Empire that controlled the lands and seas between the rivers Thames and Tigris.  When Rome thought of “tribes and languages and peoples and nations” they imagined more areas to conquer, to dominate, and to exploit for their resources, both human and material resources.  It was difficult in antiquity to surpass Rome’s activity in human trafficking.  John the prophet, in contradistinction to the prevailing regime, saw “every tribe and language and people and nation” as parts of God’s alienated, but beloved, creation, longing for a partial redemption in the present, and a complete restoration and redemption in the New Heaven and New Earth (Rev. 21-22).

You can read the complete series at 7 Subversive Letters

Read Full Post »

If Jesus Were A QB, Would He Talk About God In Public?

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on March 5, 2012| 1 Comment »

I want to start a whole new series of short blogs with questions that challenge me to know Jesus better. The “What Would Jesus Do” Question is often asked as the prologue to a highly prescriptive conclusion, i.e., “therefore, you should do this because Jesus would have done this!” 

I don’t have too much trouble with that approach if, in fact, Jesus faced exactly the same situation, BUT I have a big problem with people who want to have all the answers as to what Jesus would do in every situation based on their own presumptions of understanding God.

Again, I don’t intend to be prescriptive, but I do think I can stimulate you to think more about who Jesus is by asking some of the questions that I ask myself.  I’ll share with you what I think—briefly—but then I’d like to hear from you too.

If Jesus were quarterback for an NFL team or a point guard for an NBA team, would he always be talking about God?

I can’t think of any time when Jesus did NOT talk about God!  He started at least by twelve years old at the temple in Jerusalem. He talked about God when he ate, when he was in the synagogue, when he was in boots, when he was on trial, when he was with crowds, when he was by himself.

People often didn’t like it when Jesus talked about God.  It made them uncomfortable the way he was so familiar with God. It disturbed them that he seemed so confident in his relationship to God.  He spoke with authority about God and that really bothered other people who thought they owned God’s authority.

Jesus also spoke about God in contexts that many people considered inappropriate. He talked about God in the presence of children (danger of indoctrination). He talked about God in the presence of the poor, the sick, and the needy (could be charged with lack of compassion). He talked about God to religious people who did not understand God the way he did (danger of proselytism). He talked about God in the presence of people with alternative lifestyles (danger of being politically incorrect). He talked about God in business environments (danger of mixing secular with spiritual).

There are certainly lots of verses in the Gospels in red, and most of them are God-talk. Even the talk about being a good neighbor, Jesus says, is really all about God.

My answer is YES. If Jesus were a quarterback or a CEO or a carpenter or a nurse or a teacher or a policeman or a government employee or a sanitation engineer, He would be talking about God.

Jesus replied. “If you knew me, you would know my Father also” (John 8:19)



Read Full Post »

Suggestions for Stretching in 2012

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on January 3, 2012| 1 Comment »

Stretching becomes more important the older we get!  It’s pretty natural to stretch. Almost all of us stretch when we wake up in the morning.  When I drive lots of miles, it always feels good to get out of the car and stretch.  Extended periods of inactivity or confinement in tight spaces seem to naturally generate the need to stretch ourselves.

You know that pull in your back and your thighs when you try to touch your toes? Or the mild discomfort in your Achilles tendon when you stretch it? You have to bend a little further, reach further, or move some body part MORE than you usually do, or you have not really stretched anything! That extra is always a little uncomfortable and sometimes mildly painful, but you do it for the benefits.

And what are the benefits of stretching?  You feel better, you move better, and you avoid cramping or even injury by stretching.  No wonder it is one of the first things we do every morning!

I wonder if stretching ourselves spiritually shouldn’t be just as natural as stretching our physical body is?

It’s a new year, so I’d like to challenge us to make 2012 the year to start stretching, if it is not your current habit!

Here are some suggestions for starting your spiritual stretching.  Remember, if it is not a little uncomfortable or mildly painful, then you haven’t stretched at all.

  • Do something kind and thoughtful for someone you do not really like that much.  (Who was the first person that came to mind? That’s probably who you should choose!) And do it anonymously so that you are not worried about who gets the credit or what your motives are.
  • Sit in a very different place at church for several weeks.
  • Do your daily Bible readings out of a new modern version, not the Bible you have been using forever.
  • Give more than you have been.  How long has it been since you adjusted your weekly tithe? Or add a new regular donation to your budget for a needy person or a new mission work.
  • Read and/or research about a topic that has seems hard or uncomfortable to you. Do this long enough until you understand why other people are not uncomfortable with it.For example:
    • Homosexuality
    • Poverty and Welfare
    • Addictions and addictive behaviors
    • Contemporary vs. traditional worship
    • Islam  or Buddhism
    • Emerging Churches
    • Universal salvation vs. eternal punishment for the lost
    • Feminism
    • Non-evangelical branches of Christianity: Roman Catholicism, Orthodox, Calvinism, Charismatics.  And while you are learning, visit their services and get to know people personally who belong to that group.
  • Go on a mission trip instead of a vacation this year!  If you have always done service projects, do a faith-sharing mission trip.  If you have always stayed in the U.S., go out of the country for this one.
  • Make a list of things that are not wrong to do at church—in fact, some Christians do them–, but that you personally would rather not do—then do one of them!  You might try lifting your hands while you pray—at least no one will see you! Or you might kneel to pray—if not at church, then at home! (I remember when it was common to see our preachers kneel on the stage or on the first row when they prayed! But that’s been a long time ago.)

Don’t do all these stretches at once.  Give yourself time to recover from one before you attempt another.

And, don’t forget the benefits:  you feel better (about yourself and about other people), you are more flexible and can move more easily, and you avoid injury. Many Christians have been injured and have injured others because they were inflexible.

May your New Year be not just happy, but happier because you are a healthier Christian, ready to run the race put before you!

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »