(Presented at the Georgia Baptist Convention Music Conference, FBC Snellville, July 22, 2011)
1. Be Future-oriented, but informed by your past. Change happens more rapidly now than at any time in human history, and it is not going to slow down. When you are riding in a buggy it is one thing. But driving at 70 mph requires always keeping your eye on the road ahead.
2. Be indigenous. There is no point in being an “embassy” in the midst of your culture. Speak the language of the culture: “But in the church I would rather speak five intelligible words to instruct others than ten thousand words in a tongue” (1 Cor. 14:19). Do it in such a way that a lost man “will fall down and worship God, exclaiming, “God is really among you!” (1 Cor. 14:25).
3. Be Evangelistic. Always highlight the good news of forgiveness in Christ Jesus.
4. Know your congregation. A “First Baptist Church” is not usually a church plant. You are working within parameters.
5. Do everything as well as you can do it—excellence.
6. Use a worship team to process, analyze, gain feedback, and plan the worship including the messages.
7. Love your people and be determined. Your love will do more to build unity and help people through transition than any arguments you may come up with. Especially in regard to worship, people are dealing with feelings not logic.
8. Listen. People will say that you do not listen if you fail to do what they tell you to do. But listen anyway. Listening is important because you learn things. It also tells people that you value them and love them.
9. Be honest. My leadership of worship is not about hearing God speak from heaven: “Sing hymns” or “Use guitars.” I am on my personal pilgrimage. I am fallible. I make mistakes. I am doing the best I can with the people God has given us to provide worship that brings us into God’s presence.
10. Be who you are, not who “they” want you to be. You will wear yourself out trying to be somebody you are not.
11. Give people permission to experiment and to fail. Some things we do only once and scrap them.
12. Use the gifts of your people. Equip the people for works of service. Every minister is an equipper.
13. Be faithful to God’s Word. Preach the Word. That is and should be the main event in worship.
14. Emphasize prayer. Call people to the front of the church to pray. Include prayer in all of your meetings. Keep up your personal prayer life.
15. Do the little things. It looks overwhelming when you take it all in, everything that has to be done. But sit down at your desk, pick up that telephone, and begin to make the calls that are your priority.
16. Cultivate a climate of peace—do not be anxious. Your anxiety is communicated to those about you, and it does not assist the Holy Spirit in his work.
17. Develop Rhino Hide. People are going to criticize you no matter who you are or how talented. You want to remain sensitive to others while learning how to go on joyfully and peacefully after hearing criticism.
18. Be the leading worshiper.
19. Stay for awhile. You cannot lead a church through change if you leave as soon as you hit choppy seas. Some things come with long tenure that come with nothing else.
20. Have the wisdom to know when to compromise so that you can keep going forward. You will not get everything you want every time.
21. Don’t covet your friend’s church or his worship leader or his choir or his facility or his budget or his praise team or anything else about your friend’s church.
22. Count your blessings every day.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Whoever believes should not panic!
A lama stood in the main wading pool on the creek and refused to move even when our vehicle splashed muddy water on his shaggy coat. So Janet and I took the four grandchildren downstream a hundred yards and turned them loose where no Peruvian beasts of burden stood guard.
The two wandering lamas should not have been on the farm this spring. They belong to a neighbor who bought them as a breeding pair when prices soared and left them mostly unattended when the market collapsed.
The lamas, together with a rattlesnake, two raccoons, a skunk, and a curious jack rabbit, were part of a menagerie that fascinated the grandkids between picnics in the creek bed and wagon rides through the pastures. The most frightening moment came, not with wild beasts, but with the herd of Dorper ewes and lambs who thought we were about to feed them. They surrounded the wagon, black faces bleating loudly for food, and scared the children half to death, especially Jackson, age 5.
Jackson’s rendition of John 3:16 should calm our nerves: “…whoever believes in him should not panic but have everlasting life.” Substituting “perish” with “panic” may not convey the same meaning, but it stays true to the intention of faith. Panic is generally the emotional response when we have lost control of a situation. Faith informs all situations with this truth: God is in control.
The birds, said Jesus, have a lesson to teach us. Failing to sow or reap or store their food in barns they still enjoy the provision of the Father in Heaven. Therefore, “do not be anxious” (Matthew 6:31). Believing is the cure for panic.
Next time your heart takes off without permission and your startled body starts to hyperventilate remember these words from Undine Zengel, a relatively new believer in our church:
It is an amazing gift to be in God's Kingdom here on earth and to feel like one belongs no matter what the physical circumstances. Clinging to the living Word shields from all of life's storms so that they do not destroy us even if they do some damage. There is a part they can never reach.
Whoever believes should not panic.
The two wandering lamas should not have been on the farm this spring. They belong to a neighbor who bought them as a breeding pair when prices soared and left them mostly unattended when the market collapsed.
The lamas, together with a rattlesnake, two raccoons, a skunk, and a curious jack rabbit, were part of a menagerie that fascinated the grandkids between picnics in the creek bed and wagon rides through the pastures. The most frightening moment came, not with wild beasts, but with the herd of Dorper ewes and lambs who thought we were about to feed them. They surrounded the wagon, black faces bleating loudly for food, and scared the children half to death, especially Jackson, age 5.
Jackson’s rendition of John 3:16 should calm our nerves: “…whoever believes in him should not panic but have everlasting life.” Substituting “perish” with “panic” may not convey the same meaning, but it stays true to the intention of faith. Panic is generally the emotional response when we have lost control of a situation. Faith informs all situations with this truth: God is in control.
The birds, said Jesus, have a lesson to teach us. Failing to sow or reap or store their food in barns they still enjoy the provision of the Father in Heaven. Therefore, “do not be anxious” (Matthew 6:31). Believing is the cure for panic.
Next time your heart takes off without permission and your startled body starts to hyperventilate remember these words from Undine Zengel, a relatively new believer in our church:
It is an amazing gift to be in God's Kingdom here on earth and to feel like one belongs no matter what the physical circumstances. Clinging to the living Word shields from all of life's storms so that they do not destroy us even if they do some damage. There is a part they can never reach.
Whoever believes should not panic.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Fathers & Peace on the Playground
Thousands of children growing up in our community are fatherless. Many have experienced the death of their biological fathers, a very common situation in pockets of our population. One coach working in a high crime area of the Upper Ninth Ward was absent for two weeks while on vacation. A boy on the team asked the other coach, “Is Coach Jared dead?” For these young boys who have lost so many men in their lives, a two-week absence provokes such thinking.
The first pastor of the Jerusalem church, James, who is called the brother of Jesus, wrote that “pure religion” was “to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction” (James 1:27). Scholars think it very likely that Joseph, the husband of Mary, died when Jesus and James were still children. In such a case the offspring may suffer what James, who knew what it meant to lose your father, called an “affliction”—oppression and distress.
This condition is most poignantly illustrated by Hagar and her young son Ishmael, banished and abandoned by his father Abraham, weeping in the desert, full of fear and confusion, looking to die.
Children who struggle under the distress of fatherlessness are in crisis. They need the intervention and involvement of good men willing to help fill the gap. Opportunities abound on the playgrounds for such surrogate fatherhood.
A team of volunteers from our church tried to start some positive activity on one of the playgrounds in New Orleans. Local gang members looked on this activity disapprovingly and sabotaged the lights to discourage gatherings and cover with darkness their own crimes and misdemeanors.
These playgrounds, open and green, are strategic spaces in the battle for the streets of New Orleans. They represent all the common spaces we share as a community. At one time they were the hubs of healthy neighborhoods. Many adults cherish great memories created on those playgrounds. That was the intention behind their creation.
Historically the men of our community have claimed the playgrounds. They must now be reclaimed if their neighborhoods are ever again to foster the safe environments and healthy relationships that strike at the roots of violence and crime.
The playground that looks unkempt and abandoned may actually be occupied, but not by positive role models and healthy attitudes. A playground not utilized and energized by fathers and other men with good intentions may serve a purpose diametrically opposed to the original intent.
Fathers—and all those willing to stand in for absentees—must rise from their recliners, find their baseball gloves and basketballs, and foster fun and peace on the playgrounds. Instead of shaking our heads over the condition of youth in our community, let’s start shaking their hands, learning their names, and teaching them how to dribble, pitch, and hold their tempers.
Some day when they look back upon their childhood those fatherless among us will give thanks for the men with steady hands who addressed the wounded hearts they did not know they had and became like dads to them.
This Father’s Day we remember the men who held us with strong arms, taught us to throw a curve ball, helped with vocabulary and algebra, and provided for us when we were young. They were not perfect, but they are giants in our minds. All our lives we may return the favor by caring for kids. Now that is some pure religion.
The first pastor of the Jerusalem church, James, who is called the brother of Jesus, wrote that “pure religion” was “to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction” (James 1:27). Scholars think it very likely that Joseph, the husband of Mary, died when Jesus and James were still children. In such a case the offspring may suffer what James, who knew what it meant to lose your father, called an “affliction”—oppression and distress.
This condition is most poignantly illustrated by Hagar and her young son Ishmael, banished and abandoned by his father Abraham, weeping in the desert, full of fear and confusion, looking to die.
Children who struggle under the distress of fatherlessness are in crisis. They need the intervention and involvement of good men willing to help fill the gap. Opportunities abound on the playgrounds for such surrogate fatherhood.
A team of volunteers from our church tried to start some positive activity on one of the playgrounds in New Orleans. Local gang members looked on this activity disapprovingly and sabotaged the lights to discourage gatherings and cover with darkness their own crimes and misdemeanors.
These playgrounds, open and green, are strategic spaces in the battle for the streets of New Orleans. They represent all the common spaces we share as a community. At one time they were the hubs of healthy neighborhoods. Many adults cherish great memories created on those playgrounds. That was the intention behind their creation.
Historically the men of our community have claimed the playgrounds. They must now be reclaimed if their neighborhoods are ever again to foster the safe environments and healthy relationships that strike at the roots of violence and crime.
The playground that looks unkempt and abandoned may actually be occupied, but not by positive role models and healthy attitudes. A playground not utilized and energized by fathers and other men with good intentions may serve a purpose diametrically opposed to the original intent.
Fathers—and all those willing to stand in for absentees—must rise from their recliners, find their baseball gloves and basketballs, and foster fun and peace on the playgrounds. Instead of shaking our heads over the condition of youth in our community, let’s start shaking their hands, learning their names, and teaching them how to dribble, pitch, and hold their tempers.
Some day when they look back upon their childhood those fatherless among us will give thanks for the men with steady hands who addressed the wounded hearts they did not know they had and became like dads to them.
This Father’s Day we remember the men who held us with strong arms, taught us to throw a curve ball, helped with vocabulary and algebra, and provided for us when we were young. They were not perfect, but they are giants in our minds. All our lives we may return the favor by caring for kids. Now that is some pure religion.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Thoughts on my 15th anniversary in New Orleans
First Baptist New Orleans moved into the current church facility seven years ago this coming Sunday. The only place I ever worshiped longer than I have worshiped in our new facility is down at the old church on St. Charles and Napoleon. Together these two houses of worship have been my preaching point and pastoral assignment for 15 years.
These 15 years have been exhilarating and tumultuous. Relocation was itself a tremendous undertaking that required enormous financial and human resources. The emotional cost of relocation was perhaps its greatest price tag.
We had scarcely settled into the new facility—less than 15 months of occupancy—when Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, and our city, including our church neighborhood, was flooded and plunged into darkness. We returned to worship at the new facility seven weeks after the storm. We used a large generator to run the lights and fans until electrical power was restored to our facility three months later. We often worked from our kitchen tables until telephone and internet services were restored almost one year after the storm.
The annual hurricane season stirs up for many of us a host of unsettling memories. We lost our friends, our businesses, our homes, and our way of life in that terrible flood. We choked on the dust from ten thousand demolitions and gagged on the rancor of rotten meat from every freezer at the curb. We sank exhausted into borrowed beds week after week, commuted a hundred miles to work and school, and led and fed waves of volunteers who donned hazmat suits and helped us clean up the awful mess.
We set up structures and initiatives in the wake of Katrina that endured for the years of clean-up but are rendered obsolete by progress. We transitioned from normal to chaos to disaster relief to clean-up to rebuild. And now we are transitioning again to an emerging new normal.
This emerging era in New Orleans is what I want to talk about today. I want to do so using a metaphor that I often used after the storm—the open door. Before Katrina all the doors were closed. After Katrina, all the doors were open.
The crisis opened all doors. Some of those doors are closed now that the emergency is past and life is returning to normal.
Rev. 3:7-13: “To the angel of the church in Philadelphia write:
These are the words of him who is holy and true, who holds the key of David. What he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open. 8 I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut. I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.
These 15 years have been exhilarating and tumultuous. Relocation was itself a tremendous undertaking that required enormous financial and human resources. The emotional cost of relocation was perhaps its greatest price tag.
We had scarcely settled into the new facility—less than 15 months of occupancy—when Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, and our city, including our church neighborhood, was flooded and plunged into darkness. We returned to worship at the new facility seven weeks after the storm. We used a large generator to run the lights and fans until electrical power was restored to our facility three months later. We often worked from our kitchen tables until telephone and internet services were restored almost one year after the storm.
The annual hurricane season stirs up for many of us a host of unsettling memories. We lost our friends, our businesses, our homes, and our way of life in that terrible flood. We choked on the dust from ten thousand demolitions and gagged on the rancor of rotten meat from every freezer at the curb. We sank exhausted into borrowed beds week after week, commuted a hundred miles to work and school, and led and fed waves of volunteers who donned hazmat suits and helped us clean up the awful mess.
We set up structures and initiatives in the wake of Katrina that endured for the years of clean-up but are rendered obsolete by progress. We transitioned from normal to chaos to disaster relief to clean-up to rebuild. And now we are transitioning again to an emerging new normal.
This emerging era in New Orleans is what I want to talk about today. I want to do so using a metaphor that I often used after the storm—the open door. Before Katrina all the doors were closed. After Katrina, all the doors were open.
The crisis opened all doors. Some of those doors are closed now that the emergency is past and life is returning to normal.
Rev. 3:7-13: “To the angel of the church in Philadelphia write:
These are the words of him who is holy and true, who holds the key of David. What he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open. 8 I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut. I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
The Student is Not Better Than the Teacher
A friend told me last Sunday, “I want to take the country back.” He meant by this, I think, that he wanted to return to a time when the United States seemed to operate within a Protestant ethos.
My own sense of Christianity and the church is that we will always be a minority in a hostile culture, even when we think we are not. I never experienced a culture that I would call "Christian" in my upbringing. This includes my Bible-belt experience at a school in Central Texas in the late 60s. I was shocked at the behavior and conversation of my new "Baptist" friends. I couldn't believe they claimed to be Christians.
My family and our faith always felt like a minority view everywhere we lived. So the desire to turn back the clock to some previous era when America was Christian and we prayed and read the Bible in public schools does not resonate with me. I experienced public education hijacked by the local Catholic establishment. They wanted nothing to do with Christianity as I understood it. The local priest opposed our Bible study and warned students not to attend even though the cafeteria served fish every Friday and everyone came to school with ash crosses on Ash Wednesday (except me).
I am still working on the idea that the church is responsible for Christianizing the culture. I don't see this approach in the ministry of Jesus or the Book of Acts. I see Jesus as almost nonpolitical. He didn't join any of the existing political groups. He did not seem to have a social agenda that I can identify. His "render unto Caesar" remark seems to represent the summation of his political activism.
Instead, he was focused on preaching the good news and gathering together a group of people who would carry the gospel to the ends of the earth. The gospel always has social implications that are to be lived out and preached. He announced his ministry in Luke 4 as focused upon the blind, the broken-hearted, the captive, and the poor. He healed the sick and cast out demons. He did not arm himself or his followers. He never took up the sword. He did not befriend the powerful elite of his day. He did not engage in social engineering.
Our Baptist heritage is bifurcated at this point. Some people tend to be more Calvinist in their approach to culture. They want to organize a Christian society, as Calvin tried to do in Geneva. That experiment most historians would judge a failure.
Other Baptists tend to follow the Anabaptist heritage of our forefathers. This is the heritage of a "free church in a free state," the notion that being the authentic church is the most powerful social strategy we can implement in any culture.
The Book of Revelation may in part be seen as a philosophy of history. You have the Beast trying to devour the people of God. The people of God are mistreated, hunted, and murdered. But their blood cries out for justice and their tears are remembered by God. God himself brings about justice when he intervenes in human history, defeats the devil, and brings a "new heaven and a new earth in which dwells righteousness."
This is not a very hopeful view, I know, in terms of this world. And it does not energize a social reform movement, so to speak. So I am trying to rethink the eschatology of the Bible and see how I might correct my perceptions.
Chuck Colson has suggested that we have a "cultural mandate" in the Bible that goes hand in hand with the Great Commission. He finds support for this, not so much in the death and resurrection of Jesus, but in the doctrine of Creation. In this view, everything belongs to God and should be under his dominion. The doctrine of creation may be where this fits, but I have always been "pre-millennial" about this matter. God made the world, and he will bring it under his authority at the end. I would be more satisfied with an understanding of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus that calls me to engage the principalities and powers of my time, including the political structures that are unjust and ungodly. Some biblical teachers have taken this approach.
I believe I am a citizen of two kingdoms: the kingdom of God and the human society of which I am a part. My citizenship in heaven is of far greater importance to me. My citizenship on earth is a stewardship. It is a gift to live in a nation where government is "of the people, by the people, and for the people." Therefore, I should be participating in this government as a Christian responsibility. I suppose this is my major motivation for political action--the doctrine of stewardship.
When I think about using the political process to further my Christian agenda, I develop a sobering hesitation. The sword of the Spirit is an extremely sharp and fine instrument. It will discern even the intentions of the heart. The sword of the magistrate is a very blunt instrument. It will strike often where it is not intended. If I choose to use the sword of the magistrate to accomplish the will of God, I may be disappointed with the result. I may discover that my efforts to Christianize my society have only resulted in confusing people about what it means to be a Christian. People may begin to think that they are Christians if they maintain certain political viewpoints or vote for a certain party. That is part of the danger of seeking to use coercive power (the government) to impose my viewpoint on the culture. Authentic Christianity cannot be coerced. So whatever I achieve in the culture is a "middle axiom," somebody said, not a perfect manifestation of the Kingdom of God.
I guess part of me wants to say to Christians, What do you really expect? They hung Jesus naked on a cross. You think now that you're going to get the power to execute? "A servant is not better than his master. A pupil is not better than his teacher. If they did this in a green tree, what will they do in the dry?" I expect the culture to scorn me, ridicule me, persecute me, and marginalize me. I don’t want to be a doormat. But I don't live under the illusion that somehow I am going to receive accolades and the Key to the City because I stood for righteousness and truth (though I did receive the Key to the City from the Mayor one year, accidentally). More likely I will be tarred and feathered or run out of town.
These questions remain before me: What will lift the light of the gospel higher in this city? What is the most effective way to bring people to Christ? How can I do a better job of making disciples for my Lord? How to I express faith through love (Galatians 5:6)?
My own sense of Christianity and the church is that we will always be a minority in a hostile culture, even when we think we are not. I never experienced a culture that I would call "Christian" in my upbringing. This includes my Bible-belt experience at a school in Central Texas in the late 60s. I was shocked at the behavior and conversation of my new "Baptist" friends. I couldn't believe they claimed to be Christians.
My family and our faith always felt like a minority view everywhere we lived. So the desire to turn back the clock to some previous era when America was Christian and we prayed and read the Bible in public schools does not resonate with me. I experienced public education hijacked by the local Catholic establishment. They wanted nothing to do with Christianity as I understood it. The local priest opposed our Bible study and warned students not to attend even though the cafeteria served fish every Friday and everyone came to school with ash crosses on Ash Wednesday (except me).
I am still working on the idea that the church is responsible for Christianizing the culture. I don't see this approach in the ministry of Jesus or the Book of Acts. I see Jesus as almost nonpolitical. He didn't join any of the existing political groups. He did not seem to have a social agenda that I can identify. His "render unto Caesar" remark seems to represent the summation of his political activism.
Instead, he was focused on preaching the good news and gathering together a group of people who would carry the gospel to the ends of the earth. The gospel always has social implications that are to be lived out and preached. He announced his ministry in Luke 4 as focused upon the blind, the broken-hearted, the captive, and the poor. He healed the sick and cast out demons. He did not arm himself or his followers. He never took up the sword. He did not befriend the powerful elite of his day. He did not engage in social engineering.
Our Baptist heritage is bifurcated at this point. Some people tend to be more Calvinist in their approach to culture. They want to organize a Christian society, as Calvin tried to do in Geneva. That experiment most historians would judge a failure.
Other Baptists tend to follow the Anabaptist heritage of our forefathers. This is the heritage of a "free church in a free state," the notion that being the authentic church is the most powerful social strategy we can implement in any culture.
The Book of Revelation may in part be seen as a philosophy of history. You have the Beast trying to devour the people of God. The people of God are mistreated, hunted, and murdered. But their blood cries out for justice and their tears are remembered by God. God himself brings about justice when he intervenes in human history, defeats the devil, and brings a "new heaven and a new earth in which dwells righteousness."
This is not a very hopeful view, I know, in terms of this world. And it does not energize a social reform movement, so to speak. So I am trying to rethink the eschatology of the Bible and see how I might correct my perceptions.
Chuck Colson has suggested that we have a "cultural mandate" in the Bible that goes hand in hand with the Great Commission. He finds support for this, not so much in the death and resurrection of Jesus, but in the doctrine of Creation. In this view, everything belongs to God and should be under his dominion. The doctrine of creation may be where this fits, but I have always been "pre-millennial" about this matter. God made the world, and he will bring it under his authority at the end. I would be more satisfied with an understanding of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus that calls me to engage the principalities and powers of my time, including the political structures that are unjust and ungodly. Some biblical teachers have taken this approach.
I believe I am a citizen of two kingdoms: the kingdom of God and the human society of which I am a part. My citizenship in heaven is of far greater importance to me. My citizenship on earth is a stewardship. It is a gift to live in a nation where government is "of the people, by the people, and for the people." Therefore, I should be participating in this government as a Christian responsibility. I suppose this is my major motivation for political action--the doctrine of stewardship.
When I think about using the political process to further my Christian agenda, I develop a sobering hesitation. The sword of the Spirit is an extremely sharp and fine instrument. It will discern even the intentions of the heart. The sword of the magistrate is a very blunt instrument. It will strike often where it is not intended. If I choose to use the sword of the magistrate to accomplish the will of God, I may be disappointed with the result. I may discover that my efforts to Christianize my society have only resulted in confusing people about what it means to be a Christian. People may begin to think that they are Christians if they maintain certain political viewpoints or vote for a certain party. That is part of the danger of seeking to use coercive power (the government) to impose my viewpoint on the culture. Authentic Christianity cannot be coerced. So whatever I achieve in the culture is a "middle axiom," somebody said, not a perfect manifestation of the Kingdom of God.
I guess part of me wants to say to Christians, What do you really expect? They hung Jesus naked on a cross. You think now that you're going to get the power to execute? "A servant is not better than his master. A pupil is not better than his teacher. If they did this in a green tree, what will they do in the dry?" I expect the culture to scorn me, ridicule me, persecute me, and marginalize me. I don’t want to be a doormat. But I don't live under the illusion that somehow I am going to receive accolades and the Key to the City because I stood for righteousness and truth (though I did receive the Key to the City from the Mayor one year, accidentally). More likely I will be tarred and feathered or run out of town.
These questions remain before me: What will lift the light of the gospel higher in this city? What is the most effective way to bring people to Christ? How can I do a better job of making disciples for my Lord? How to I express faith through love (Galatians 5:6)?
Monday, May 2, 2011
The Things Mothers Teach Us
King Lemuel decided to share with the world the wisdom he had garnered during his ascent to the throne. These “sayings” of King Lemuel are the things “his mother taught him” (Proverbs 31:1). Restated this means that the king learned his really important lessons from his mother.
Maybe Lemuel’s mother was unusually wise and articulate. But I suspect that the king learned these things from his mother for the same reason that many of us found our mothers to be our best teachers: mothers love their children.
One night I was privileged to handle bedtime for the three preschool daughters of my eldest daughter. As I was tucking them in they started to plead, “Back scratch! Back scratch!”
“Okay,” I said, and I scratched their backs, but I could not perform the task precisely as their mother did, and they all fell asleep feeling slightly deprived.
Mothers scratch your back out of love, not duty. They hold you close, comb your hair, clean your ears, and wash your feet just because they love you. They are often our most powerful teachers, not just because they teach us when we are very young, but also because they teach us out of this context of unselfish love.
The things of which you think you are certain climb in number while you are a child. But if you are emotionally healthy and intellectually active, sometime in young adulthood that number of supposed certainties begins to decline.
The things which remain as personal certainties after the gauntlet of adolescence, education, marriage, parenting, bereavement, conflict, and grand-parenting are mostly the lessons your mother taught you. These sureties are solid ground for decision-making, relationships, and quality of life on the planet.
The king’s mother taught him to use his power for the good of others, to abandon selfish indulgence and focus on caring for his subjects in need. She cautioned him about wine and women which she said are not the prerogatives of kings but their downfall.
The king’s mother cared for him when he himself was helpless and needy and could not speak for himself—when he was a baby. That’s what mothers do. They encourage such behavior in their sons and daughters because they know it corresponds with fundamental truth and goodness.
This Mother’s Day we should rehearse the things our mothers taught us by word and example. Maybe the principles and virtues we learned from them will aid us in our current dilemmas, conflicts, and challenges. A mother’s tenderness, gentleness, and generosity should not be lost on those who now have opportunity to speak for the powerless and destitute.
If our mothers are still among the living, we should count ourselves blessed. They deserve a heartfelt thank you and a big hug if we can give it. If they have passed from this life we are still blessed to have known them and known their love. A moment’s reflection about that remarkable woman on this special day might bring a smile and a laugh. Remembering her we might even see the way forward to a higher road, a deeper love and a better life. Her selfless love continues to teach us our most important lessons.
Maybe Lemuel’s mother was unusually wise and articulate. But I suspect that the king learned these things from his mother for the same reason that many of us found our mothers to be our best teachers: mothers love their children.
One night I was privileged to handle bedtime for the three preschool daughters of my eldest daughter. As I was tucking them in they started to plead, “Back scratch! Back scratch!”
“Okay,” I said, and I scratched their backs, but I could not perform the task precisely as their mother did, and they all fell asleep feeling slightly deprived.
Mothers scratch your back out of love, not duty. They hold you close, comb your hair, clean your ears, and wash your feet just because they love you. They are often our most powerful teachers, not just because they teach us when we are very young, but also because they teach us out of this context of unselfish love.
The things of which you think you are certain climb in number while you are a child. But if you are emotionally healthy and intellectually active, sometime in young adulthood that number of supposed certainties begins to decline.
The things which remain as personal certainties after the gauntlet of adolescence, education, marriage, parenting, bereavement, conflict, and grand-parenting are mostly the lessons your mother taught you. These sureties are solid ground for decision-making, relationships, and quality of life on the planet.
The king’s mother taught him to use his power for the good of others, to abandon selfish indulgence and focus on caring for his subjects in need. She cautioned him about wine and women which she said are not the prerogatives of kings but their downfall.
The king’s mother cared for him when he himself was helpless and needy and could not speak for himself—when he was a baby. That’s what mothers do. They encourage such behavior in their sons and daughters because they know it corresponds with fundamental truth and goodness.
This Mother’s Day we should rehearse the things our mothers taught us by word and example. Maybe the principles and virtues we learned from them will aid us in our current dilemmas, conflicts, and challenges. A mother’s tenderness, gentleness, and generosity should not be lost on those who now have opportunity to speak for the powerless and destitute.
If our mothers are still among the living, we should count ourselves blessed. They deserve a heartfelt thank you and a big hug if we can give it. If they have passed from this life we are still blessed to have known them and known their love. A moment’s reflection about that remarkable woman on this special day might bring a smile and a laugh. Remembering her we might even see the way forward to a higher road, a deeper love and a better life. Her selfless love continues to teach us our most important lessons.
Friday, April 15, 2011
Crosby Prediction
I predict that Harold Camping, the elderly radio talk show host now predicting Judgment Day on May 21, 2011, and the end of the world October 21, 2011, will adjust his predictions to future dates after doing further calculations on May 22, 2011.
I believe my prediction will most certainly take place because “no one knows the day or the hour,” according to Jesus (see Matthew 24:36). Since Camping is working from the genealogies in Genesis 5 and 11 and the account of Noah’s great flood, I assume he can and will come up with calculations to support new dates for the world’s demise.
William Miller, a sometimes Baptist preacher, predicted the end of the world no later than March 21, 1844. He adjusted his prediction after the fateful day passed without incident, lighting on numerous dates in 1844.
Edgar C. Whisenant predicted that the Rapture of the church would occur September 13, 1988. As an American pastor, I received his free booklet, “88 Reasons,” which I keep as a more recent example of misguided apocalyptic fervor. Whisenant was insightful enough to realize that his date had passed without incident, so he then predicted September 15, 1988; then October 3, 1988; and then again selected a day in 1989, 1990, 1991, etc. By then no one was listening.
Camping is not insightful enough to realize that 1988 passed without apocalyptic incident. He is declaring that the church of Jesus Christ was abandoned by her Lord and conquered by Satan on May 21, 1988. His own nondenominational, un-churched and unaffiliated status protected him from this frightful prospect.
This is Camping’s second go-around for predicting the end of the world. His book “1994?” postulated the end of days in 1994 with a tad more humility. He thought at that time he could be wrong, but all uncertainty has passed now.
I first encountered Camping’s date on a huge downtown billboard in Accra, Ghana. Seminary students here in New Orleans are discussing the prediction, and various Christian ministries have gotten on board with Camping just as Trinity Broadcasting Company partnered with Whisenant in 1988.
Expectation of the return of Jesus Christ and the end of the age is an essential part of orthodox Christian theology. It should keep Christians future-oriented and eager to see God’s unfolding plan. It gives hope beyond human strength and wisdom. And it provides confines for human history that exalt the role of God in the world and set all human effort in the context of God’s sovereign rule.
Setting dates for the end of the world is a truly bad idea. While it reminds us that Christ could come any day, it also discredits our message of the Lord’s return and disappoints countless saints who assume the prediction to be true. I have personally witnessed the flagging enthusiasm for the gospel among those who thought they knew when the end would come and were disappointed.
The prophet profits from the prediction in countless ways including fame and fortune. The average Christian who is caught up in the zeal of the Lord’s return leaves the whole ordeal with a bad taste in his mouth.
Judgment Day is coming because justice is an eternal quality of our eternal God. May 21, 2011, is a great day to be expectant of the Lord’s return and continuing your faithful routines. If Christ’s return should catch you in the classroom instead of on the mountain, he will be finding you faithful.
I believe my prediction will most certainly take place because “no one knows the day or the hour,” according to Jesus (see Matthew 24:36). Since Camping is working from the genealogies in Genesis 5 and 11 and the account of Noah’s great flood, I assume he can and will come up with calculations to support new dates for the world’s demise.
William Miller, a sometimes Baptist preacher, predicted the end of the world no later than March 21, 1844. He adjusted his prediction after the fateful day passed without incident, lighting on numerous dates in 1844.
Edgar C. Whisenant predicted that the Rapture of the church would occur September 13, 1988. As an American pastor, I received his free booklet, “88 Reasons,” which I keep as a more recent example of misguided apocalyptic fervor. Whisenant was insightful enough to realize that his date had passed without incident, so he then predicted September 15, 1988; then October 3, 1988; and then again selected a day in 1989, 1990, 1991, etc. By then no one was listening.
Camping is not insightful enough to realize that 1988 passed without apocalyptic incident. He is declaring that the church of Jesus Christ was abandoned by her Lord and conquered by Satan on May 21, 1988. His own nondenominational, un-churched and unaffiliated status protected him from this frightful prospect.
This is Camping’s second go-around for predicting the end of the world. His book “1994?” postulated the end of days in 1994 with a tad more humility. He thought at that time he could be wrong, but all uncertainty has passed now.
I first encountered Camping’s date on a huge downtown billboard in Accra, Ghana. Seminary students here in New Orleans are discussing the prediction, and various Christian ministries have gotten on board with Camping just as Trinity Broadcasting Company partnered with Whisenant in 1988.
Expectation of the return of Jesus Christ and the end of the age is an essential part of orthodox Christian theology. It should keep Christians future-oriented and eager to see God’s unfolding plan. It gives hope beyond human strength and wisdom. And it provides confines for human history that exalt the role of God in the world and set all human effort in the context of God’s sovereign rule.
Setting dates for the end of the world is a truly bad idea. While it reminds us that Christ could come any day, it also discredits our message of the Lord’s return and disappoints countless saints who assume the prediction to be true. I have personally witnessed the flagging enthusiasm for the gospel among those who thought they knew when the end would come and were disappointed.
The prophet profits from the prediction in countless ways including fame and fortune. The average Christian who is caught up in the zeal of the Lord’s return leaves the whole ordeal with a bad taste in his mouth.
Judgment Day is coming because justice is an eternal quality of our eternal God. May 21, 2011, is a great day to be expectant of the Lord’s return and continuing your faithful routines. If Christ’s return should catch you in the classroom instead of on the mountain, he will be finding you faithful.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
