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Did Bush Cheat?

September 10, 2010 by Mark Woodward

No, not the president—not either one of them—nor their good wives! I’m talking about Reggie Bush, who won the Heisman Trophy in 2005, the award given to the best player in college football.  For those who don’t follow college football, don’t worry. I want to talk about cheating, not football.

In June of this year, the NCAA (which regulates large college sports) found the University of Southern California—where Reggie Bush played football—guilty of major violations, so guilty that they banned their football team from participating in any bowl games for two years, put them on probation for four years, and stripped them of thirty scholarships—AND, USC had to forfeit all of their games for 2004, which was their national championship year.

The reason for these very severe penalties was that the institution knowingly allowed Reggie Bush to receive “improper benefits” from USC supporters, but continued to report him eligible to play.  Interestingly, both the NCAA and USC—and Bush–everyone agrees that Reggie Bush took money from supporters, which is a violation of his amateur status and would make him immediately ineligible.  Now the Heisman Trophy Trust appears to be on the verge of stripping Bush of his Heisman trophy—which he won in a year when he was playing illegally.  That makes sense, doesn’t it?

It’s the outcry about how wrong this action against Bush is that is so disturbing to me. The main arguments seem to sound like this:

  • He was a college kid playing college football, so what’s wrong with that? (Just pretend there is no rule—and there won’t be !)
  • “Improper benefits” are everywhere! He just got caught because he is so good!(Everybody is doing it! OR, they are just after him!)
  • Bad rule. We should make all college players professionals, then you don’t have to worry about it. (Take away the parking meter and you have no more parking violations! True, but do you then have parking problems—or city financial problems?)

Here’s what I think I hear in all of these responses though: cheating is just really not so bad.

When I was teaching college English at a Christian university where over 80% of the students were from Christian homes, integrity questions appeared every semester—with multiple students. I’m talking about

  • Students who purchased term papers and submitted them as their own.
  • Students who paid or cajoled other students to write their papers for them.
  • Students whose parents wrote their papers for them.
  • Students who stole journals and submitted them as their own.

And I have not even hinted at the infamous bane of all students plagiarism yet!  Plagiarism is using words or ideas that aren’t uniquely yours but claiming them as uniquely yours.  I don’t want to get into the gray areas that you might want to get into.  Let’s just stay with copying an entire chapter out of a reference book, or copying whole paragraphs out of research articles, stringing them together, adding an introduction and conclusion and turning it in as your own research paper.  These are blatant examples of plagiarism and were extraordinarily common among students.

If you cheat in English class, then it must be OK to cheat on the football field. If you cheat on the field, then it must be OK to cheat on your taxes—or vice versa. If you cheat on your taxes, what about  . . . ?  Where does it end?

The virtue of integrity borders on being indefinable in today’s culture. I’ve tried to think when respect for the idea of integrity started to fade.  It may have been Nixon’s lies about Watergate that suggested that nobody in power is really honest, so why should anyone else be?  What’s your theory?

All I know is that honesty and integrity should be not only respected, but expected! I know we live in an age of all kinds of cheating that we are half-truths, marketing, spin, business, and politics, ad nauseum.

What if you and I agree to always tell the truth and to never cheat? And what if you and I agree not to make excuses for those who do?  What if we Christians really become the people who love the truth?

Posted in Christian Culture, Other | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments »

Can You Always Tell A Flower From A Weed?

September 8, 2010 by Mark Woodward

How would Terry Jones, the Florida pastor who organized the International Quran Burning Day, respond if a local imam in Chicago organized an International Bible Burning Day?  I never ceased to be amazed at what people will say and do in the name of Jesus!

Before anyone begins to think that I am a typical post-modern religious relativist, let me just put that idea to bed. I believe that no one comes to the Father except through Jesus (John 14:6), that there is no other name under heaven by which we can be saved (Acts 4:12).  I do not believe that Mohammed was a prophet of God. Is that said clearly enough?

I bet this pastor has no Muslim friends. Having friends you love who differ from you changes the tone of your conversations, even when you cannot change the core truths of those conversations.

And knowing Jesus changes the tone of your conversations.  What do you do with these words even if you consider Islam of the Enemy:  “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you” (Luke 6:27)?

I’m sure this pastor has said that they don’t hate the people, just the Sin that the people represent. I’ve said those kinds of things myself, but why does it always feel like a very, very impoverished expression of love?  What parts of Sin can we hate before we can’t tell the difference any more between the Sin and the Sinner?  This is a legitimate question.

Isn’t the problem that in our frailty, we  do not control our “hate” well—such a strong and terrible word—so we have difficulty avoiding the slippery slope that starts with the SIN, but finds its way too quickly to the sinner.  Maybe it is more God’s role to hate Sin?  Since God is perfect Love, He doesn’t slip at all where we too often slide.

Perhaps this is why Jesus told the parable of the wheat and the weeds in Matthew 13:

24Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. 25But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. 26When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.

27“The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’

28” ‘An enemy did this,’ he replied.
“The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’

29” ‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. 30Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’ “

We Christians apparently are not adept at telling wheat from weeds—at least that’s what Jesus said.  The day will come when He will judge with righteous judgment—and it will be a terrible day for those who do not love the truth!  But until then, God “is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9).

I don’t think Paul would lead a church to burn the Torah. He didn’t take a baseball bat to the idols in Athens! He didn’t melt the silver Artemis icons in Ephesus. I don’t think he would have burned Qurans either.  Paul’s words that I keep hearing are “I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some (2 Corinthians 9:22).

My wife and I have a lovely back yard with lots of flowers and shrubs and beautiful growing things that we inherited from the previous homeowners. We are this week, for at least the third or fourth time, changing our yard service. They keep pulling up flowers because they can’t tell them apart from the weeds! And they are professionals!!

I gave up weeding our yard long ago! I’m gradually learning to give it up in the world as well!

What about you?

Posted in Bible Study, Christian Culture, Christian Missions, Other | 5 Comments »

Nanny McPhee Returns: Talking To Your Kids About Movies

September 7, 2010 by Mark Woodward

Take your kids to see Nanny McPhee Returns (2010). I did not see the first Nanny McPhee (2005) nor have I read the Nurse Mathilda (Christiana Brand) books that the movies are based on, so I came to the film with three grandkids and no expectations. I loved it and they did too.

Emma Thompson once again is the force behind this film.  She wrote the film script, she stars as Nanny McPhee (“small c, large P”), and she co-produced the film, the role that likely gave her the most influence over the film.  The staging, the acting, the casting, the dialogue, and the plot are wonderfully crafted. I know I’m gushing, but I can’t help it—a superbly done film which children will enjoy and adults as well.

Justly briefly, let me list for you some reasons that you parents and grandparents will enjoy the film:

  • The adult humor is not based on double entendre. You get to laugh innocently—such a rare pleasure.
  • Look at the quality of the cast:  Emma Thompson (Oscar winner), Ralph Fiennes (2x Oscar nominee), Dame Maggie Smith (one of the greatest actresses ever and 2x Oscar winner), Maggie Gyllenhaal (Oscar nominee).
  • With the exception of the lone “villain” (Rhys Ifans), none of the characters is caricatured! They all have wonderfully humorous moments, but the slapstick does not overwhelm the humor!
  • The children are also well cast and well directed. They behave quite believably and are very likable!

As you leave the theater , here are some talking points for you if you like to use films as teachable moments for your kids.

  1. Why were those kids so rowdy—so out of control before Nanny McPhee arrived? You can go two directions here: one, the dad was gone to war (which is true for lots of kids today as well),  and two, Mom had to work, so they were left alone a lot. Kids really need two parents—or they can get out of control!  It may surprise your children to know there are reasons why kids are rowdy and out of control.  Help them think of those possibilities—and they might begin to understand themselves better.
  2. Why were the rich kids so uppity to the other children? I heard the story from my grandkids once about their visiting at a friend’s house who was quite wealthy. When it came time to pick up the toys and go home, the little friend said, “Don’t do that. We have people!” I’m sure the parents of that child would have also been embarrassed, but the fact is most of us have—or wish for—certain privileges. When we have them, we have to really work hard not to make ourselves more important than others. That’s hard for kids—and for their parents.
  3. What if you had to live in “the land of Poo?” When I was a boy, we used to love to go to my uncle’s dairy farm. It was a whole different world of experiences, smells, and adventures!  We hunted lizards with bows and arrows, swam in the cow tank, drank milk straight out of the cow, and ,yes, I even shoveled cow droppings sometimes for my uncle—great lessons for a city kid.  If your kids are overly homogenized, you might want to make friends with a farmer . . . .It’s good for kids to learn that much of the world does not use hand sanitizer—and to be flexible.
  4. Why did Nanny McPhee look so ugly at the beginning of the story? Especially young kids may need help with the subtle transformation of the nurse. As the movie children learn each lesson, the ugly characteristics of Nanny’s face disappear.  Sometimes other people look ugly to us because of the way we are acting more than the way they are acting.  

Of course, the obvious lessons of obeying, sharing, courage, faith, and working together can be covered. In fact, you might want to start giving medals for learning lessons as Nanny McPhee did. Just be sure, like Nanny McPhee, that you don’t make them cheap.  I loved the line when she actually hinders the children from catching the piglets; she says, “Already caught two? Hm, let’s make it more difficult!”  She was not being mean; she knew that all of us need a serious level of difficulty to really learn any of life’s important lessons.  Don’t make your medals too easy to get!

Now that I’ve discovered this series, I intend to find a copy of the original Nanny McPhee (2005) and watch it soon. The reviews say it too is “magical.” Goodness is always magical.

Posted in Talking To Kids About Movies | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

What Do You Think About Working on Labor Day?

September 6, 2010 by Mark Woodward

You get up at least five days a week, go to work, work at a job that you are so ready to leave by 5pm—or 55years old, but you can’t retire yet. So you work for ten more years, so you can retire and not work.

Then just as you are ready to retire from work and enjoy life, the stock market dives, your grown children come home—with their kids–, or someone gets seriously ill—and you have to keep working. Aren’t you asking yourself: now why are we celebrating Labor Day?

I think we—also Christians–have skewed the whole concept of work in the way we in the industrialized world live today! Those misconceptions might look something like this:

  • Work is the result of the curse placed on Adam for sin, ergo, work is the result of sin.
  • Working is so that I can afford to live in a way that brings me happiness.
  • Working is for me and what I want.
  • Working is so that someday I don’t have to work.

Try these brief ideas and see if they don’t help you think differently about working!

  1. Working is what God does, so when we are working, we are in sync with the image of God within us.  From Day One of creation in Genesis until the Judgment Day, God is working. Jesus talked about coming to do the work of his Father.  God’s work at creation was the first day of his working for the salvation of the world as well.  Our work, if woven into the fabric of His, would suddenly take on a completely different, an eschatological perspective.
  2. If affecting the world around us as farmers, bank tellers, janitors or computer technicians in a way that brings glory to God is what the nature of God in us is, if working to finish the work of the Father is what we were created to do, can there be any doubt that the deep, deep joy of being in harmony with God will provide the happiness that we so long for?  Working is the complete fulfillment of God’s plan for your life! Trying to escape it is running to Ninevah!
  3. Even your daily job is not about you! If we can get the right answer to go in the following blank, I think we will be a lot happier:  “I am working today in order to ______________________. “ If the blank is about you, you will not find satisfaction. If your answer is about others, you will have the joy that passes understanding!  (Acts 20:35; Ephesians 4:28)
  4. This last misconception is the trickiest because it is almost true. The Sabbath rest that is built into our basic desires by the image of God within us is not something bad; quite the contrary. What derails us is our human attempt to equate our Sabbath rest with retirement, thinking that is when life begins.  In fact, it was always God’s plan to give us rest from our working. Our ever-resent error is trying to create our own resort in this world and our own Sabbath on the golf course or the cruise ship.

I do believe that our own sin has caused working in this world to be harder than God intended in the Garden of Eden, but the more we allow God to forgive us of the self-centeredness of the Garden and the continual attempting to create our own Gardens (thus our own happiness), the more joy we will find in the work with which we are blessed.

Posted in Bible Study, Other | Tagged , | 4 Comments »

Let the Children On the Plane!

September 2, 2010 by Mark Woodward

Are you waiting until your children are teenagers before you think about going on a short-term mission trip with them?  DON’T!

I know what the popular wisdom is here:

  • Young children won’t understand or appreciate the experience, so wait until they will get more out of it.
  • Young children are a pain to travel with.
  • Young children are not really useful, so it is hard to justify the expense.
  • Young children are impossible to fund raise for, so you can’t afford to take them.

EVERYTHING ABOVE, I BELIEVE TO BE TOTALLY WRONG!

  • The best time for children to experience missions first is when their young minds and hearts are still soft and impressionable–not after their hormones create havoc in them for a few years.  We have 8 grandkids under the age of 8. Only the two born this year and the 3 yr old have not been on a foreign LST project, and most of them have been multiple times. They have friends in Japan. They are not afraid of foreign languages. They know what the grown-ups are talking about when they tell of teaching others about Jesus. They are very disappointed in the years they can’t go.
  • There are challenges to traveling with young kids–but they make little kids suitcases and backpacks.  They will sleep in the airplane seats. Travel is quite a fun game if the parents will invest just a little time to make it so!
  • Children are magnets on the mission field. No matter whether it is Germany or Africa or China or Turkey, adults accompanied by small children find it much more common to get into conversations with people.  I know of 6-8 year olds who have “helped” other children with their English, while their parents read the Bible in English with LST workers.  Children may be the best missionaries ever!!
  • Unfortunately, the previously mentioned misconceptions do make it difficult sometimes to raise money for children to go. We faced this even more strongly back in the 80s, when the Woodwards were starting LST, towing 3 small children behind them. I just dug in my heels and said, we don’t go without them–and tried to educate people on the good a whole family does who goes together. God provided.

Many, many mission churches do not have whole families. Often only the mother and children come, or only the father, or only the children.  To see a whole family–parents and kids–being Christians together is inspiring to onlookers, no matter what country you are in.

Your decision to take your children on a short-term mission trip will be one of the best decisions you have ever made!  And when you do it the second time, you will thank God for removing the doubts that you had.

And your children, when they are young adults,  will put their arms around you and thank you for doing something wonderful that dramatically changed their lives and helped them know God!

And is there anything in this world you want more than that?

Don’t wait!

Posted in Christian Missions, Short-Term Missions, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments »

What If Our Kids Can’t Tell The Story!

August 30, 2010 by Mark Woodward

Several years ago, Sherrylee and I were at the Tulsa Soul-Winning Workshop and heard Harold Shank quote a statistic in his keynote address that said that the number one correlating factor with continued faith in God and a relationship to His church after high school is a summer mission experience.

Sherrylee and I turned to each other literally and said that is what Let’s Start Talking has been offering college students!  But if what he said is true, we can’t ignore high school kids any more. So we put together a mission package for high schoolers called YoungFriends that LST now offers to churches as part of our comprehensive church transformation ministry (Centurion Project).

Several challenges surfaced in presenting this opportunity to youth ministers. One of them concerns me more than the others.  Here is the general list. Can you guess which one concerns me most?

  • Youth ministers are sometimes organized and sometimes not—not any different from anyone else, except it takes a lot of organization and planning to pull off a good summer mission project.
  • Youth ministers are often trumped in money decisions by senior ministers or elders who may or may not share their vision.
  • Youth ministers are also at the mercy of parents, so only to the degree that parents trust their youth minister are they willing to let him step very far out in faith.
  • Youth ministers generally tend towards service projects over evangelistic missions.

Of course, this last point is the one that concerns me most.  In our presentation to Youth Ministers, we have tried to present an evangelistic mission option—one where kids learn to tell the story of Jesus and share their own faith in a natural and non-confrontational way– as one that makes sense in a stair step approach to mission experiences.

Young people start by learning to have a heart for people, but perhaps don’t have the social skills or cross cultural experience yet to really share their faith, but by the time they get to be juniors or seniors in high school, why isn’t it time to help them verbalize their own faith story and show them natural ways for them to share their faith in Jesus with others?

Although this idea seemed to resonant with lots of people in theory, when it got to decision time, most youth ministers opted for the service project over anything evangelistic.  I think they go this way for any or all of the following reasons:

  • Service projects are tangible. Your goal is to paint a house. You buy paint and brushes, you go to the house, you paint, you clean up, and then you go home, knowing that you have accomplished your goal. You have painted a house and done good for the sake of Christ.
  • Service projects are more predictable. Things can go wrong, of course. You can run out of paint, but then you can usually buy more pretty easily. You might not finish, but it looks better than it did. Things that do go wrong are fairly easily remedied.
  • Service projects are generally low risk.  They often can be done relatively close to home. A large group can all do the same thing in the same place for mutual protection. Not much interaction with strangers. Easily supervised.  No risk of rejection.
  • Service projects are familiar to both the youth minister and other adult sponsors, as well as parents and church leaders.

Faith-sharing mission projects are a harder sell for the following reasons:

  • Faith-sharing missions are harder to describe to parents, elders, and kids.  What “strategy” or “method” are you going to use to talk to people? How are you going to meet the people you want to talk to? What if they don’t want to talk to you?
  • Faith-sharing takes most people way out of their comfort zone, so it is a harder sell. (Of course, I’m pretty sure if we did it more, we would be a lot more comfortable doing it.)
  • Faith-sharing has greater risks. Again, what if someone rejects you? What if you mess up and don’t say the right things?  What if they ask you a question and you don’t know the answer?  Isn’t this why most adults don’t share their faith?
  • Faith-sharing mission trips are much less predictable. What if the local church doesn’t prepare well? What if no one responds to advertising? Why if local Christian teens don’t warm up to the visiting group quickly? What if it rains all week, so no visitors come? Because a faith-sharing mission is totally dependent on people, LOTS of things are unpredictable!!
  • Faith-sharing mission trips are not familiar experiences for most Christians.

And they never will be familiar unless we find a way–starting with our young people—to learn to share faith as one of the most natural activities of the Christian lifestyle.

A professor of youth ministry at one of our Christian colleges, when asked why youth ministers do not tend to choose evangelistic mission opportunities, told us that he had queried all of his youth majors about this and that NONE OF THEM had ever had a personal faith-sharing experience. They themselves had only experienced service project missions, so, of course, they tend to do with their youth what their own youth ministers had done with them.  If our ministry leaders have never shared their faith personally . . . .?

If we don’t teach our kids to tell the story of Jesus, who will do it?

Posted in Christian Missions, Short-Term Missions | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

What Is The Real Pain of Missions?

August 28, 2010 by Mark Woodward

I am more. I have . . . been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. 24Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. 25Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, 26I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers. 27I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. 28Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches. 29Who is weak, and I do not feel weak? Who is led into sin, and I do not inwardly burn?  (2 Corinthians 11:23-29)

I am less—much less. Yes, once our car was hit by a bus in Germany, but I only had a sore neck from it. I’m pretty sure I was followed by a KGB-type guy in Russia once—at least he showed up in three different places when I was in one of the former “hidden” cities of Russia. I got food poisoning once at a nice restaurant in China, which led to my first and only experience with acupuncture at a local doctor’s office. I have slept on many couches that were too small, in Japan we even slept on floor palettes—but, of course, almost everyone does there—oh, and there was a small earthquake—but no damage.

I have flown on some pretty scary planes, one with instructions for emergency landings which said, “Throw rope out of window and climb out carefully!” We once rode a Romanian train that was so dark and the windows were so dirty that we actually arrived in Sibiu about 2am and none of us knew that we were there. When we did get off the train, it was so dark that we could not tell which direction to walk on the platform to exit the train station.

Well, enough of this silliness! I’m always moved by Paul’s suffering as a missionary for Christ. But as we were reading this in our LST staff devotional on Friday, the thought that struck me as even more amazing than the physical sufferings he endured was in the sentence: “Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches (v. 28).

Paul is saying, “Sure, I face the possibility of death—violent death—almost every day, but what really bothers me is the stress I have, the stress I feel over the spiritual survival of the churches I have served and the people whom I have taught.”

I do know the sadness of watching a church I have helped to plant struggle and die. I do know the pain of sitting with your children in the faith and listen to them justify their immorality by altering their view of God. But I hear in Paul’s final words in this list of sufferings an intensity of daily concern that far surpasses his fear of floggings, shipwrecks, and bandits.

Paul has the heart of a real parent who would rather die themselves than see their children lost. Paul has the heart of Christ who weeps over Jerusalem.

Who am I weeping over? Daily?

Posted in Bible Study, Christian Missions | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Follow-up: Take this Quick Poll

August 27, 2010 by Mark Woodward

Following up my post on “I Just Have To Ask . . . ” I thought I would give you a chance to express your own opinion about being asked for donations.  If you didn’t read the blog, go ahead and take the poll, then click on this link (http://wp.me/pO3kT-6S) to go back to it.  Feel free to use the new share buttons and get some of your friends to take the poll. The more, the merrier.  (And you will not get a fund raising request by answering the poll–I know what you were thinking!)

Posted in Bible Study, Christian Missions, Other | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

“I Just Have To Ask . . . .”

August 26, 2010 by Mark Woodward

I was caught off guard the other day in a conversation about fund-raising. We are just beginning our month-long annual fund-raising drive for the Let’s Start Talking Ministry, and I was talking to the staff about who we were going to be calling. Leslee spoke up and said, “Well don’t call Charlie Marshall (name changed) because he hates to be asked to give!”

Now I know Charlie pretty well. He does mission trips with LST every year and is a strong advocate at his church for this ministry, so I was a bit shocked to hear that he doesn’t like to be asked to give to the ministry. Here are the reasons that I came up with—and I wonder if they are generally applicable to more people than just Charlie??

  • He spends lots of his own money financing his own LST mission trips, so that should be enough.
  • He does his charitable giving for missions through his home church and thinks everybody should.
  • He doesn’t have any more money to give and is embarrassed to say no.
  • He has more money to give, but doesn’t want to and doesn’t want to have to say so.

Maybe you can think of other possibilities?

Then I was having  another conversation with missionary friends of ours who work in Africa. I was asking about a situation where some African brothers were asking LST to finance their church building project and a car—which is totally outside of LST’s mission.  He was reminding me that in many parts of Africa, asking for things from those who appear to have them is just like breathing. It is a survival technique that is not at all considered “begging,” or anything else that we westerners might find demeaning.

He then told me that just as it is natural for them to ask for what they feel they need, it is perfectly ok with them for you to say No as well.  He was telling me about how African preachers sometimes come to him and ask why the Americans get so upset when they are asked for something!!  Interesting, isn’t it!

I think a lot of us are Charlies who don’t like to be asked for money—maybe other stuff as well, but especially money, but here is a point I need you to think about

What if God were just like us—and didn’t want to be asked for anything, especially something that was His?

Our prayers would be a lot shorter, wouldn’t they!  In fact, as I think about asking and giving, several biblical texts come to mind that make me think that God is much different from us.

  • Matthew 5:42 – Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.
  • Matthew 7:7 – Ask and it will be given to you. . . .
  • Matthew 7:11 – . . . how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!
  • John 14:14 – You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it
  • James 4:2 – You want something but don’t get it.  . . . . You do not have, because you do not ask God.

Doesn’t this sound like it is OK with God to be an asker—in fact, He desires it!  I believe that means for me that if I am trying to be godly that it is OK , not only for me to ask others, but to be asked by others!

So my conclusion is that I am going to choose not to be offended when asked for something. And I am not going to be embarrassed if I cannot fulfill the request and must say no.  It’s a very liberating decision actually.

And where I would really like to get to is to be as God is described in Ephesians 3:20: “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask. . . .” If we love others like God loves us, then it will give us great pleasure to be asked for something we can give—and we will give more than we were even asked for!

I have a great illustration of a personal experience with someone already like this: Byron Nelson, one of the greatest golfers ever and a generous Christian. It’s longer, so I’ll post it next.

Posted in Bible Study, Christian Missions, Other | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments »

On The First Day of School

August 23, 2010 by Mark Woodward

During my morning walk today, I saw two different mini-vans loading kids with new book bags, new clothes, and big smiles on their faces. At the first house at least, both Mom and Dad were getting in the mini-van, and at the second house, the Mom was saying loudly as Dad closed the door, “And have just a wonderful day,” her voice breaking just a bit on wonderful.

It’s the first day of school for three super gkids here in North Texas.  It is also the first day of school in Escondido, California, because we have one granddaughter starting second grade today and the other starting first grade.

I don’t know if I really remember the first day of first grade in the fall of 1953. I do remember some things about first grade though! I went to first grade at Springdale Elementary School in Fort Worth, starting when I was five and turning six in late October. I didn’t go to kindergarten; it wasn’t required, and I think it cost money.

I was trying to think this morning of what was different on my first day of school from this day for my grandkids. Here are just a few things you might find interesting.

  • There was nothing electronic in our school supply list! The one piece of equipment that I remember owning for the first time was a #1 pencil. They were big and red with very soft lead that wrote very large and very dark lines.  That’s what all kids learned to print with.  They did not have erasers on the end. You had a separate eraser–usually red or green.  I searched for a picture of a #1 pencil and didn’t find any that matched my memory. One more thing to look for in the antique stores.
  • My classmates all had regular names like Ed, Larry, Janice, Betty, Mary—a few double names: Linda Jo, Billy Mac, and one boy’s name was just initials—H.L. –I don’t know if he put periods after them or not.  And I think they were all spelled like you would expect, not in ways that will require life-long explanations.
  • The school was not air-conditioned, which is one of the reasons Texas schools always started after Labor Day. We also stayed until at least 2:30, maybe 3:30. Then we were picked up by my Mom who drove carpool that year and taken home in our air-conditionless Chevrolet. Today, it is supposed to be 105 degrees here in Fort Worth. I’m glad the gkids have air-conditioning.
  • War stamps were sold in our classroom. The Korean War was almost over, but one way the federal government funded the war was by selling war bonds to adults and war stamps to kids at school. I don’t think they cost much and you put them in a stamp book like green stamps and cashed them in later.  I know I bought some. That was back when people always supported the wars that the country was in. Pretty big changes since then!
  • My first grade class learned the 23rd Psalm by memory and recited it to the whole school over the public address system for the regular morning pray. I do regret the disappearance of Christianity from our common life together—but I am not worried about prayer in public schools. As long as we teach our children to pray at home, there will be plenty of prayer at school.

I loved school from the beginning.  It is important to love learning, to learn to read and write well, to learn history, to learn how things work, but as I have thought about it, maybe the most important thing that our children learn in school is how to live in a community with others.

Do you remember the book by Robert Fulghum that came out about 1986 called All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten? I’m finishing today with just a little excerpt from his book that reminds us of what is really important about school.  This is what you want your child to learn, isn’t it?

Share everything.
Play fair.
Don’t hit people.
Put things back where you found them.
Clean up your own mess.
Don’t take things that aren’t yours.
Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody.
Wash your hands before you eat.

Flush.
Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
Live a balanced life – learn some and think some
and draw and paint and sing and dance and play
and work every day some.

Take a nap every afternoon.
When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic,
hold hands, and stick together.

Be aware of wonder.
Remember the little seed in the styrofoam cup:
The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody
really knows how or why, but we are all like that.

Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even
the little seed in the Styrofoam cup – they all die.
So do we.

And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books
and the first word you learned – the biggest
word of all – LOOK.

I would just add, “God loves you and God is with you, so make Him happy with everything you do and say.”

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