My vote may actually matter

For the first time in my memory, the Michigan primary will not just be a formality, at least on the Republican side. All of the major Republican candidates have been inundating us with phone calls and mail for a couple weeks now. The only viable Democrat on the ballot is Hillary Clinton, since the others bowed to the party leaders and withdrew their names after Michigan dared ask that our primary not occur after the issue is decided.

So here are our choices, from a slightly cynical point of view.

Mitt Romney - son of former Michigan governor, businessman, savior of Salt Lake City Olympics and former Massachusetts Governor. Mr. Romney is noted for his malleability on positions of interest to the Religious Right.

Mike Huckabee - former Arkansas Governor (yikes), Baptist preacher and darling of the Religious right. Notable for his fondness for tax hikes and pardoning prisoners who later commit additional crimes.

John McCain - Vietnam Vet (not again), prisoner of war, Senator from Arizona noted for his ability to vote against President Bush's tax cuts, vote for fuel economy standards that will hurt the domestic automakers and passage of the incumbent protection act known as McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform.

Rudy Guiliani - former Mayor of New York, September 11, 2001 icon whose personal life is a train wreck. He is avowedly pro-choice but a strict constructionist on judges. He was a tax cutter as mayor and cleaned up the porn shops and prostitutes in Times Square while dramatically lowering the crime rate in the Big Apple. Religious Right says he is not family-friendly, despite record of cleaning up city.

Fred Thompson - Former Senator from TN, and actor on Law and Order, The Hunt for Red October etc. He may be the most genuinely conservative candidate running, but his lack of "oomph" leaves many wanting more.

Ron Paul - Member of Congress from Texas and this year's Ross Perot.

So which of the seriously flawed candidates do I vote for? I won't tell you, but it isn't Hillary.

We are picking a leader to run our country for 4 years, and it is a 2-year process to do so. There are no easy choices this year. But at least my vote will mean something.

Is our Gospel too small?

A recent Christianity Today article has me thinking about the Gospel we preach. Is the Gospel we preach like a bowl of Lima Beans and bland? I know few people who get excited about eating lima beans. I eat them, but I wouldn't special order them. I sort of tolerate them as filler in with other vegetables in a medley. Is that the Gospel we preach today?

Quoting from the article:

"How could it be, some believers might balk, that "the hope of the world," the One given "the name above every name," could ever seem bland? Well, because often the church is bland. Pale. Gullible. Pasty. Just there. The fruit of this vine appears to be lima beans. If bland is the flavor of the church, then it is presumed to be the flavor of the One the church calls Lord.

This anemic image of Jesus has many adherents, both in and outside the church. Their innocuous Jesus is the result of social, political, economic, and spiritual accommodation. Who needs more from Jesus than some simple stories of a loving example? To go further would be zealous, and to be religiously zealous is definitely not a current cultural ideal. Those in the church who stand out are often seen as intolerant and intolerable. Better the disdainfully bland than the dangerously zealous.

It's a misstep, some would say, to take Jesus—his example and his teaching—too seriously. To do so is to get too close to all those details that hound religious specialists, breed religious acrimony, and cause war. Jesus from 10,000 feet away is close enough. The Google Earth view of Jesus identifies only the most prominent features of his life and teachings, bringing nothing too close and taking nothing too seriously. Such a Jesus may be vaguely interesting, but he is consigned to blandness and faint praise."

The church is bland and lacks spice. I'm surprised he didn't say that it has lost its saltiness. That would tie right back into one of Jesus' admonitions. Not that the church needs to be the coolest, hippest, spiciest thing out there. But we have a message of revolutionary love that is like nothing that the world has to offer. The Creator of the Universe wants to dwell with us an in us. He wants to make it so that we can have communion with Him and live in the power of His Love. That is spicy, not bland.

As you may have read, our congregation is in the process of securing our first building. This has me asking "how has the place where we corporately worshiped shaped what we do?" Have the limitations of space and availability taken some of the zing out of our Gospel? If so, how do we remove the blandness and present a full gospel with all of the excitement, hope and passion that our Lord brought to us?

Pray for our tribe as we sort through this transition time. Jesus deserves a robust gospel presentation, not lima beans.

God is still moving

Here a just a couple snippets from the Mexico and Central America region of the Church of the Nazarene. Bernie Slingerland and Milton Gay, both mentioned in the stories, were missionaries who shepherded us on our 2005 Jesus Film trip to Guatemala.

New Church planters

Maxima Mission reaches 5th anniversary

Pray for these folks. God is moving in this region, and great things are happening.

Disenfanchised Voters

It seems to me that only Democrats talk about disenfranchisement, and then only when they lose. Think back to the Bush-Gore 2000 Florida fiasco. Gore was screaming about disenfranchisement, even though all of the counties in question had elections run by Democrats. Now Hillary is saying that the caucus format disenfranchises voters. She may be right, but there is an elephant in the room that the Democrats seem to be ignoring. I think she doesn't like the format because she doesn't win with it. But that is my opinion.

Here in Michigan, Hillary is the only leading Democrat on the Jan 15 primary ballot. The rest removed their names because Michigan moved its primary up on the calendar into the sacred slots given only to Iowa and New Hampshire. Imagine that. A state going through a one-state recession/depression wanting to have its issues debated and its voice heard. Perish the thought.

So how do the bastions of fairness and "let every vote count" react to this heresy? Why, they strip the state of its delegates for violating party rules. If that isn't disenfranchisement, I don't know what is. But the same people screamed when the Supreme Court applied the constitution to their selective recount in Florida. It's OK to trash the constitution, but not the party rules. That is the new Democrat mantra.

Hypocrisy is such an ugly thing when it is exposed.

Do you have a bucket list?

By now you have probably seen the advertisements for the movie "The Bucket List." It has me thinking about a list of things I would like to do before I "kick the bucket." So here is my list, in no particular order.

1. Visit Machu Piccu. It is an ancient Incan village in Peru at an elevation of 7900+ feet. It takes several days to get there on foot through a series of tunnels, bridges and narrow paths. It just looks awesome to me. It predates Columbus' discovery of the New World and is remarkably well-preserved. I've seen some Mayan ruins in Guatemala, and I would like to visit Tikal, but Machu Piccu trumps Tikal by far.


2. Visit the Missionaries of Charity mission in Calcutta, India. This is the mission founded by Mother Teresa to care for the poor, sick and dying members of India's lower castes. This is from Wikipedia: "Missionaries care for those who include refugees, ex-prostitutes, the mentally ill, sick children, abandoned children, lepers, AIDS victims, the aged, and convalescent. They have schools run by volunteers to educate street children, they run soup kitchens, as well as many other services as per the communities' needs. They have 19 homes in Kolkata alone which include homes for women, for orphaned children, and for the dying; an AIDS hospice, a school for street children, and a leper colony. These services are provided to people regardless of their religion."


3. Fly an airplane solo. I would love to get my pilot's license, but I've never devoted the time or money to that cause.

4. See my girls grow up and live God-honoring lives. That is all I can ask.

5. See Mount Everest. I have no desire to climb it. This stocky, middle-aged flatlander was sucking wind in Colorado. I believe my lungs would explode on Everest.

That pretty much sums up my list. There are a few things I would like to see AFTER I kick the bucket too. I'm hoping God has some sort of video archive of stuff I read about in the Bible. There are some things that would make for great viewing there.

Happy New Year

Last year I shared with you my resolutions for the new year. I apologize for the delay this year, I think I may be operating on the Julian calendar.

I did a reasonable job of keeping my resolutions from last year. I do note progress in being more accepting of my Christian brothers and sisters who worship in a different manner. My Theology of Worship class that I am currently taking will help with that as well.

Here are my plans for the new year.

1. Continue to plow ahead with my seminary education. I transferred to Nazarene Theological Seminary this year and am taking 8 credit hours this spring. At this pace, by this time next year, I will be nearly 50% done with my MDiv degree.

2. Actively begin seeking a formal ministry role. This February I will have the opportunity to renew my ministry license. With the progress on my degree and my second year of licensure, I need to begin looking at ministry opportunities that will count toward the experience necessary for ordination. I'm not sure where or when to begin this, but I do know that the Lord is moving me in that direction.

3. Find ways to impact the community around me. It may be as simple as helping my neighbors and sharing the love of Christ with them. It may be more complicated than that. But I will do what God leads me to do.

4. Be more intentional about sharing my ministry call with my family. My wife and kids will play a huge role in how the Lord uses me in ministry, and I want them to be fully on board with what the Lord is calling us to do.

I have a lot of optimism for this year. I pray that the Lord will continue to be central in my life as he calls me into a new phase of life.

Maybe these explain the Detroit Lions

Let's get this straight. Matt Millen is 31-81 as President of the Detroit Lions. what is the logical thing to do to fix this sorry situation? Fire the offensive coordinator of course! Then promote the offensive line coach, who had 2 guys in the top 5 in sacks allowed, to offensive coordinator. That my friends is Lions Logic.

I wish I knew how to quit this team.

These fine posters from Despair.com pretty much say it all.

How is this a good idea?

This week begins the official portion of the 2008 Presidential Beauty Contest. The Hawkeye Caucii (or Iowa Caucus) kicks off the season, and all political eyes are on Iowa. This brings a few questions to mind for me.

1. Why does Iowa get to go first? It is a relatively small state that requires candidates to pander to the ethanol and farm lobbies.

2. Is Iowa representative of America? Fewer than 150,000 people, or less than 5% of Iowans will probably participate in a non-secret ballot format, and this will determine delegates to a nominating convention?

3. Is making people stand in squares in the high school gym the best way to pick a president?

All of this just boggles my mind. And the folks in Iowa treat this as their birthright, as if they were destined to be the arbiters of who is elected. By the time this rolls through Iowa and New Hampshire (another bunch of self-important election snobs) half of the candidates will be knocked out of the process. Two relatively small states function as the winnowing agent? I just don't get it.

A very different Christmas Carol

One of the things that attending seminary has done for me is that I have gained a new appreciation for the seemingly forgotten Christian brothers and sisters in the Orthodox Church. That is another post in and of itself, but take a few minutes to listen to the Byzantine Hymn of the Nativity in the clip below. It's very different, and very cool.

And Pray for our brothers and sisters in the Middle East. It's not easy being a Christian there.

Thanks to Fr. Deacon Raphael for the tip on the video. He is one of my favorite OOZERS.

A gift that I am still working on

If you are looking for inspiring stories of faith in people's lives around the world, pick up "The Narrow Road." It is written by Brother Andrew, a Bible-smuggler and it chronicles his life in WWII, the Dutch East Indies war, and his call into missions. It is inspiring and will put a little steel into your Christian spine going into the new year.

It's an easy read, and available at your local Christian bookstore. Or wait a couple weeks and you can borrow mine :)

Another early Christmas present

Our church has been a plant that worshiped in an elementary school for several years. We have started a capital campaign to build on some property outside of town, which is going well. But recently, a church in town closed its doors and the Lord impressed upon us to try to purchase that facility as an interim step toward our ultimate goal.

They have accepted our offer, and we are in the process of getting approvals. This is a wonderful gift to our tribe of believers this Christmas.

Praise God for his faithfulness.

A nice article on a young lady from my church

Lauren Harper is a high school exchange student in Pune, India. Here is a Monroe Evening News story about her trip. It appears that she is having an interesting trip.

Woo Hoo!

We just had our 10,000th visit to this site. It took 3 years, but it brings a smile to my face.

Emmanuel ( God With Us)

Each year at Christmas we celebrate the coming of the Christ Child, when God took human form and moved in with us. The Hebrews called it Emmanuel, or God With Us.

I recently preached on that topic and realized that to the Israelites, God with us meant a lot, because they could remember through stories when God literally lived with them.

During the Exodus, God was with them as a pillar of fire and a cloud. When Moses went up on the mountain, they heard the voice of God shaking the ground. And when Solomon dedicated the Temple, the Glory of the Lord filled the Temple to the point that the priests could not perform their ceremonial priestly duties. That was God with them.

A carpenter's son, born in a manger and fleeing for his life from a king wasn't their idea of Emmanuel. But God, in his wisdom, sent Jesus to live with us, like us, and among us, so that he could give us victory over sin, death and Hades. It still amazes me to think that Jesus would give up the beauty of heaven to come to this mess. A perfect place for a very imperfect place. A place of beauty for a world filled with much ugliness. That is love my friends. True, selfless love.

And now that the Holy Spirit lives in us, not a building in Jerusalem, we are called to be the embodiment of Christ to the world around us. This Advent and Christmas I have been thinking a great deal about what that can mean for me personally, my family, and my church. I don't have answers, but I encourage you to ask the Lord to show you how you can be the incarnation of Christ to those around you. How can you bring Jesus to them, not in an arrogant, "I'll tell you how to do it" way, but a "I love you because you are you" way. More of a servant's heart, like Jesus, rather than that of a fixer.

That is the meaning of Christmas. Love came and set up camp in our neighborhood. I want to do the same and spread the Love that rescued the world.

Get Ready

The Prince Caspian Trailer is out.

I don't envy Rich Rodriguez

For those who do not know who I am referring to, he is the new head football coach at the University of Michigan. Yes he is taking over a great, storied program, but there are undercurrents afoot that can suck him under if he is not careful.

First, he has to win. Winning 75% of your games at Michigan is not good enough. Period. And you have to beat Ohio State and never lose to someone like Appalachian State again. Don't even schedule a school like that and risk losing.

Second, he is in a position similar to a young (he's 44) pastor who succeeds the retiring hand-picked successor to a larger-than-life pastor in a large church. Bo Schembechler is a minor deity at Michigan, and Lloyd Carr, the retiring coach, was on Bo's staff and is "A Michigan Man" whatever that means. Rodriguez is from West Virginia, has no ties to Michigan, and is not part of the Bo lineage. And he does things differently. He runs an unconventional 3-3-5 defense and a spread offense, neither of which were in Bo's schemes.

I say that to warn the faithful that Rodriguez will change things. He will do many things differently, and endless carping about "the Michigan Way" will not help. If the "Michigan Way" was still working, Rodriguez would still be at West Virginia and Lloyd Carr would have picked one of his assistants to follow him. But, this program has been in a steady decline for a few years, unable to win big games, and embarrassed in the Rose Bowl and the Appalachian State and Oregon games.

I say this to help the faithful who worship at the Maize and Blue temple to realize that the good old days aren't coming back in the way you remember them. This guy is a good coach, who has built a powerhouse at a school not known for its football tradition. Remember Bo, but don't expect a reincarnation of him. Three yards and a cloud of dust has gone the way of the dodo.

Still looking for the perfect gift for that special someone?

Look no more. And you can help out wildlife conservation efforts as well.

I'm just doing my part to help. :)

It's that time of year again

Yep. It must be Christmas if the ACLU is running around telling municipal governments to get Creche's off of city property. Every year this happens. The ACLU does its thing, the Christians get outraged that they cannot display a manger scene on city property, and news cameras show up.

Why do we do this? I saw a letter to the editor in our local paper the other day with a brilliant idea. Instead of Christians fighting to put a manger on public property, why don't ALL of the Christians put one on their own property? Imagine streets lined with reminders of Jesus' birth. House after house testifying to their faith. What a witness that would be to the world.

I'm pretty sure we will have one up next year. We've been shopping for an illuminated one that doesn't look cheesy. Unfortunately the best ones are out of stock. But that is my plan for next year. I won't ask the city to do what I won't do myself.

What was the point of that?

Major League Baseball finally released its much-ballyhooed "Mitchell Report" chronicling the Steroid Era of baseball. I never really understood what the point of this was, and after seeing the list of names accused of using steroids, I'm even less convinced that this was necessary.

Here are a few of my thoughts:

1. George Mitchell, the principal investigator is on the board of directors of the Boston Red Sox. How can he even appear to be impartial?

2. Mr. Mitchell didn't have subpoena power, so no one was compelled to talk with him. If fact, many players did not cooperate with the investigation at all.

3. The Lords of Baseball (owners) and Bud the Dud (commissioner) knew this was going on. It is no coincidence that balls began flying out of the park at record clips immediately after the last labor stoppage that cancelled a World Series. The Lords of Baseball needed fans back in the seats and $ in their wallets, so they turned a blind eye toward what was happening. And Bud the Dud seems to have been a willing if not, clueless accomplice. He even held a press conference yesterday and said he had not read the report yet. But he was determined to act. Good plan Bud.

4. Steroids are illegal, but the point of this was not to prosecute. And under the labor agreement with the players union, there was no testing for steroids allowed, and no penalties for use. And using steroids could bring a player enough money to set his grandchildren for life. Great reward and little risk just invites abuse.

5. The only players named were those who someone else threw under the bus. Some of the most prominent names in the era - Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa - are not named. It doesn't mean that they are not guilty of using steroids, it just means that their friends are tight-lipped.

6 Lastly, the naming of the players seems a bit like character assassination of the players. There were no rules, there is no prosecutable evidence, but yet they chose to release what they acknowledge is an incomplete list. Since Mitchell couldn't compel anyone to talk, there is no way this is an exhaustive list. But these guys are now named, and other cheaters move on whistling past the graveyard.

Baseball is the second-worst managed sport around. The National Hockey League is the worst, but gaining quickly on baseball. This is a pathetic attempt to blame the players while the owners and pitiful excuse of a commissioner move on like nothing happened and "put this all behind us."

The sad thing is that I will keep watching. And that is my fault.

How do you define success?

This discussion thread started me to thinking about how you define "success" in terms of a church? Is it missional activity? Is it the number of people in attendance on Sunday morning? Is it the number of people converting to Christianity? Is it lives changed? Is it......?

I lean toward the school of thought that Christ will transform lives and the fruit of that transformation will manifest itself in the way the individual sees the world around him/her and interacts with the lost and hurting world in which we live. If they adopt the attitude that they have their "fire insurance" and don't really have to do anything else, that may not be the poster child you want to use in your success stories.

What do you think? I'd love to hear how you define success for a church. Post a comment and let's talk.