12 Witnesses

Before I get to the tagging stuff, I just want to update about the weekend… by not telling you anything. I will be doling out that info much later, I’m afraid. On the other hand, most who read my blog already know it, and the rest probably don’t much care, so cheers, then.

Ok, Kevin Bussey tagged me with this list of fours deal and so now I have to answer all these questions. The problem is, the bloggers I already do know have already been tagged and at the end I have no one to whom I can pass this. Hmm. Is this a blessing or a curse?

4 Jobs I Have Had In My Life
Dry Cleaning counter dude - in college.
Janitor for Woolworth’s - first job, in high school
Clothes - suit salesman - also in high school. To this day, my wife is not allowed to dress me nor to buy my clothes, nor to suggest what I should wear to any event. This annoys her greatly.
I helped my Father in Law farm for a couple of summers, and he paid me. Not that I was worth anything. he was just trying to feed his daughter, I suspect.

4 Goals I Have Set For This Year
To treat my wife with more love and compassion
To read more
To guard my self less (that is, to let it all out when trying to reach our students, etc. as opposed to saying what will not stir the pot with parents, but will keep the peace.)
To guard myself more when it comes to the information I take in.

4 Movies I Could Watch Over and Over
The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill But Came Down A Mountain - One of Hugh Grant’s first films, when he was all innocent - like. I love british humor. Speaking of…
Monty Python and the Holy Grail - Nyeh!
McClintock! John Wayne in a romantic western comedy. Nice.
The Outlaw Josie Wales - to get the testosterone and adrenaline flowing.

4 Places I Have Lived
Houston, TX - My hometown, even though I was born in Hattiesburg, MS.
Ft. Worth, TX - Seminary days of which I am very fond. I was married then and my son was born there.
Corn, OK - My wife’s ancestral roots. Lived there just out of Seminary and before moving to …
Russellville, KY - My current abode. A place so nice I moved there twice.

4 TV Shows I Love To Watch
ER - for years
West Wing - Even though i am a Republican, I love the quick wit - and I argue with the TV when they go all “liberal,” which is fun
Law & Order - any variety
My Name is Earl - Crazy, karma based freak show, but absolutely hilarious.

4 Websites I Visit Daily
My Yahoo - Which has all of my blog reads listed as content so I can get the updates at a quick glance.
SBC Outpost
Confessions of a Recovering Pharisee
Grace and Truth to You

4 of My Favorite Foods
Mexican - specifically tacos. Mui bueno.
Pizza - after almost 19 years in student ministry, I still eat pizza at least three times a week. That’s on my own, too. Not just at an event.
Bar-B-Q Texas style, though. The stuff here in KY is only surpassed in its yuckiness by what you find in NC. Yuck.
Ice Cream - Pepermint or Mint Chocolate Chip. Yum.

4 Places I Would Rather Be Right Now
Houston - I miss it. Not the traffic, but the vibe and my friends.
Ft. Worth - The most laid back big city ever. Foat Wuth, Ah Luv Yah.
Durango - We honeymooned in Durango and skied there for a week. It was awesome.
Cayman Brac (one of the Cayman Islands) - great scuba diving there.

Ok, if I can think of someone to tag, I’ll post it here later. It would be sad to not know enough people online to tag them, but then it would be sadder if Kevin hadn’t tagged me, so there’s that.

I am traveling this weekend. I don’t know if I will have the chance to post, but I am not counting on it. My schedule will be pretty tight.

I hope to have a lot to say on my return.

Art

It snowed most of the afternoon, yesterday. It wouldn’t stick, though, as our weather has been so crazy and the ground was far from cold. It wasn’t even sticking to the grass, trees or bushes.

After a while, I just asked God if He wouldn’t mind letting it stick to the vegetative stuff. “It just looks so much prettier that way,” I told Him. Wouldn’t you know it, the flakes got really fluffy and it started to stick. It wasn’t even sticking to the roads at all, just to the brown, ugly grass and the bare trees and bushes. It snowed like that most of the evening and it was gorgeous. I even woke this morning to a lightly snow covered world.

Now, I am not so arrogant as to think that God did that just to make me feel good. My view of God’s sovereignty is pretty high, and I think that the ramifications of everything are million fold and all woven together by Him and for His glory, bent to His will. In other words, God never does anything for one reason and I am never the center of it. He is always the center.

My perspective, though, sees the one thing I wanted from the situation. So, in my mind, I was feeling pretty stressed and found peace in that beauty - and in the knowledge that it was just what I asked for from my Father and He was gracious.

When snow covers the ugliness of winter ground, I think of the verse in Isaiah. Is. 1:18 says, “‘Come now, let us reason together,’ says the LORD. ‘Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.’”

I am reminded that even though the scars of my sin remain in my person, He covers me and makes me over in His mercy. I am renewed by His grace, lavished on me, though I don’t deserve it.

Frankly, that’s enough to make a guy feel better about everything. Not only that God loves you enough to be merciful, but also to remind you of it, just when you need it. That’s a wonderful savior. Wouldn’t you agree?

I have noticed that the tone and timbre of my blog, and the blogs I read, have been centered around controversy lately. Mostly, it deals with the SBC, the IMB and its Board of Trustees, but we have deviated in topic some. Still, we seem to be decrying the actions of this person or that. The notable exception is Tim Sweatman, who has recently blogged about a great CD and the Steelers winning the Super Bowl. Although he did gripe about LC Greenwood not being elected to his rightful spot in Canton, he has had a bright disposition of late, and it has been refreshing.

I wanted to blog some new stuff about Dr. Hershael York weighing in on his blog concerning the IMB, but just didn’t have the heart. His is a deep and long work, which has a lot right with it, but a few things with which I disagree. Thankfully, Jason Sampler, who is a Ph. D. student - and therefore must be smarter than me - did an outstanding job of response and I refer you to his blog.

What I really want is to tell you about what God is doing in my life. Unfortunately, I can’t. It’s really great, but not public at this time. I hope to share more next week.

So what can I say that might uplift the few readers who drop in on me?

I will say this: God is good and faithful. He loves beyond our comprehension and is patient beyond all reason. Thankfully I am a recipient of these gracious mercies. Moreover, so are you.

The issue of His Grace is seldom questioned by those who read my blog, but I suspect that you are like me and sometimes go unaware of His particular mercies. So, I pray that we are all more aware of His presence and purpose in our lives. I pray that we are overwhelmed with His magnitude. I pray that we are faithful to His call.

I was watching the Today show this morning before coming in to the office and they were running a story on the current outrage in the Muslim world over a cartoon depicting “the prophet Muhammad” wearing a turban shaped like a bomb. The cartoon was published in September in a Danish newspaper. Muslims believe any depiction of Muhammad is blasphemous and this particular rendering is more offensive because it mocks him and them as violent.

As discussion of the situation continued, the issue was raised to one expert as to why these Muslims were protesting this depiction of their beliefs being founded on a violent foundation, but they were not in the streets when bombers devastate innocents and planes fly into buildings. The reply was that there was a double standard in effect.

At this point I was reminded of an article I read on Kevin Bussey’s blog last week, telling about Fred Phelps who pastors Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, KS. Fred and his congregants run several websites, the flagship of which is godhatesfags.com. They protest the funerals of fallen soldiers, claiming that God killed the soldiers because homosexuals bombed their church. Really.

Now my mind is percolating here. I am offended that Muslims don’t rise up to silence their violent counterparts who want death to all who believe differently than they do, then protest when they are portrayed as violent. How hypocritical are we, then, if we do not rise up to silence the fringe foolishness of those who claim to be of our faith?

It comes down to the fact that there is no silencing Fred and Westboro BC. This is not a First Amendment issue, either. We do believe and support everyone’s right to speak, but to incite violence is an act not protected by the First Amendment. It is, rather, an issue of confusion and complexity. We don’t know what to say to these people to silence them. In fact, nothing can be said to them, directly. Any attempt to do this will cause you to become the focus of their ire and will engage you in an argument with someone who refuses to listen to what you say - but demands to you adhere to their extreme protests. This is an argument that cannot be won.

The best we can do is to speak to those who might also hear their message. This will serve to distance ourselves from them in the eyes of the unchurched, which will lend us credibility. Also, it may serve to keep others from falling under their teaching - which will do more good than anything to stop them. If they are unable to reproduce their ideas in others, they will die out, eventually.

As to the Muslim protesters, I understand you are saying that not the entire Muslim world is violent, but if you want us to take you seriously, you need to distance yourself from the fringe.

I was talking to my buddy, Nick, today and he was telling me about a discussion he just finished having with his pastor. They regularly discuss the differences in their generations (builder and buster) and often disagree. Their music guy was also there and kicked off a big debate with this statement: “We don’t need another sermon like Sunday’s. We’ve had our “temperance sermon” for the year.”

The pastor began saying that they needed to raise some money for the “Kentucky League Against Alcohol,” which my friend just calls the “Temperance League,” which is what it used to be called. The debate is on whether or not the church should raise money for the political fight against alcohol. This echoes “Evangelical Orthodoxy’s” comment on my last post.

Nick says that it is foolish to try to legislate morality, and I would add that it makes us seem ridiculous to expect that non-Christian people would be willing to live according to Christian values. “But our country was founded on those values,” you might well say, and I agree that it was. It was founded thusly, however, when the culture as a whole shared those values in common. The church’s general failure to be relevant to succeeding generations has caused our culture to move away from those values in an ever increasing way which now results in a sharp division between “Christian culture” and “Non-Christian culture.”

Nick, I think, brings sharp clarity to the conversation with a business analogy. As a former business student, he referenced the “supply & demand” formula that is commonly known to us - taught to me in high school. The basic function of this model is that when supply is short, demand suffers and drives the price high. When demand is less, supply has to drop to keep prices at a level that keeps them in business. When one side lowers, the other has to lower.

Nick suggested that the builder generation solution is to address the supply side of the equation, trying to curb production and availability. We are trying to address the demand side of the equation, convincing people that life is better as God intended it to be lived and ignoring producers. If we are successful, production will have to drop or even cease.

I thought that was a great way to put it. His pastor, though, is still trying to raise a little money for the Temperance League.

I have been blogging some this morning - posting on other people’s blogs. I guess it is time to post on my own.

I have been so caught up in the various things happening out there. I found encouragement toward a resolution to Wade Burleson’s individual situation on his blog. I found hypocrisy and sheer un-Christian attitudes exposed on Kevin Bussey’s blog. I found news articles about the IMB controversy and the possibility of the members of the SBC asking all the trustees to step down if they continue their course of asking for Wade’s removal on Marty Duren’s blog. I also found a discussion on Rick Thompson’s blog that featured a “critique” of one of my comments concerning the local church after the article, “If the church is the only hope, what is the hope for the church?” In the end, it is this that has got me going.

I have been reading Barna’s book, Revolution, as noted in the sidebar on the right. I was going to save comment on it until I was done. I was, however, delayed by caring for a sick child and haven”t finished as I hoped to do. Still, I think Barna has a few things to say and since the subject came up in a way that I couldn’t avoid over at Rick’s blog, I want to address it here. Remember, please, that I am not quite finished.

First let me say that I am not buying everything Barna is selling. I do believe in the validity of the local church. If I did not, I would quit it and start trying to reach people through another lifestyle altogether. My presence in the local church is my greatest testimony in my belief in the local church.

There are some things that the church needs to deal with, however. Nationwide, approximately 80% of unchurched people (81% in KY) have left the church after having been a part of it. In KY, 43% of the unchurched left in the previous 5 years (2005 stat) and 38% in all the years previous. Moreover, the numbers get larger as the unchurched get younger. To sum up, the church has a major disconnect between younger generations and the gap is widening yearly.

The complaint? I am paraphrasing and oversimplifying, but mostly they think we are fake. And I have to agree. To a large extent we are.

Now I am not talking about your run of the mill hypocrisy, here. We all bear the marks of a life not lived up to the standards we represent in Christ.

The issue of falsehood that is so egregious is that we claim to have a life altering message, but settle for church membership/attendance. At least, this is true in the churches around me. The concern is that we should get people in church, get kids off the street, keep them out of trouble, get that young family to attend - they’ve been out for a while. Truth is, that young family is finding that the time investment in the church is not reaping the spiritual dividends that we claim will be theirs. Rather, they get songs and sermons to which they cannot relate, child care that appears not to prioritize their children’s safety, and people who are more concerned that they be counted and that they give some money than if their souls are nourished.

This is not true of every church. In fact, I suspect that no church represents this concept in a wholesale fashion. It is, however, a fact that we are perceived this way by many.

We need to be willing to lay aside our format. That has been said before and will be said again. My greatest concern here is that we need to lay aside the way we practically do evangelism. Too many times we settle for “getting people in church,” and we just quit with that.

First we need to make sure that we are leading them to faith in Christ. Then we need to make sure that we are nurturing them in the areas of discipleship, fellowship, vital worship, sound doctrine and more. The more we count them and expect money from them, the less they will be there and the less they will give. The more we really win them and really nurture them, the more they be faithful and the more they will invest of their money, time and talents.

What do you think we need to do differently than we are doing?