Missional: Possible

The winter edition of Leadership Journal had a series of articles under the heading Going Missional. One of those, Missional Possible: Steps to Transform from a Consumer Church into a Missional Church, was distributed to the elders from each congregation at last week's PMC cluster meeting to take home, read, and discuss as a group. We haven't met to discuss it yet, but I look forward to the conversation.

This 2-page article gives one of the clearest definitions of missional that I have read. I'll let it speak for itself...

Missio Dei stems from the Triune God: the Father sends the Son, the Father and the Son send the Spirit, and the Father and Son and the Spirit send the church into the world...

A missional church lives out the church's three-dimensional calling: to be upwardly focused on God in worship that is passionate; to be inwardly focused on community among believers that is demonstrated in relationships of love and compassion; and to be outwardly focused on a world that does not yet know God...

Two main distractions often block a congregation's missional expression. The first is Self-Preservation...the church began to exist for the sake of the church...the point is not whether we can build churches that last, but whether churches can touch the world with God's love...

The other primary distraction is Church Growth. When the emphasis is on bringing the world to the church, the church's mission of going to the world can get lost...

Attracting people to the church is not necessarily wrong. In fact, it's important not to view missional as the opposite of attractional...the problem arises when attracting people becomes the mission...

Becoming missional means redirecting resources toward the world. This means that church leaders take a hard look at how money, time, and energy are allocated. Is it for the sole benefit of those in the church, or invested in God's mission to the world?

The Wisdom of Crowds

This month's book for Central Dallas Ministries' Urban Engagement Book Club was James Surowiecki's The Wisdom of Crowds. I haven't quite finished it yet, but he makes a compelling argument that collectively, we are smarter than any of us individually. Like much of what I read these days, I see implications for a missional church.

He begins with a historical illustration from a 19th century county fair in England. 800 people entered a contest to guess what the weight of an ox would be when it was butchered. While some of the contestants were familiar with livestock, most were essentially ignorant. When all of the guesses were averaged together, the collective guess was that the ox would weight 1197 lbs. It's actual weight was 1198 lbs. None of the individual guesses were close.

He gives examples from a variety of fields, including the stock market, the gaming industry, google, and politics, and concludes that, given the proper conditions, the collective wisdom can generally be counted on to be better than that of individuals. Those conditions include diversity, independence, and decentralization.

The first year of the Partnership for Missional Church process is spent in learning to listen. Another way of saying that is that we have been learning to practice collective discernment. This book seems to underscore the value in the process, if the group has enough diversity and independence.

A couple of specific passages caught my attention. The first, in an illustration on the ignorance of voters (the context is that despite individual ignorance, democracy works exveptionally well)...

Polls show that Americans think that the United States spends 24% of its annual budget on foreign aid. The reality is that it spends less than 1%. (p. 266)

The second passage that caught my attention explains a little bit why diversity is critical...

If you think about intelligence as a kind of toolbox of skills, the list of skills that are the "best" is relatively small, so that people who have them tend to be alike. This is normally a good thing, but it means that as a whole the group knows less than it otherwise might. Adding a few people who know less, but have different skills, actually improves the performance of the group. (p. 30)

Missional Theology of the Blues Brothers

In the movie The Blues Brothers, Elwood proclaimed throughout the movie in his exaggerated Chicago accent, "We're on a mission from God." Jake and Elwood were on a mission to raise enough money to save the orphanage where they had grown up. Through all their escapades, as they reunited the members of their band, as they evaded police, klansmen, and women scorned, as they performed on stage, they continually came back to "We're on a mission from God."

One might not exactly agree with their methodology, and one might even question whether their sense of mission was of God (although I seem to recall James saying something about caring for widows and orphans), but one would have a hard time denying that they remained motivated by their mission.

There is a lesson there for us as we seek to become missional. If we become convinced and convicted that we are on a mission from God, we might take a few risks and we might step outside our comfort zones. That may be what a missional church is - one who says, "We're on a mission from God."

Missional Reflections

Random, possibly related thoughts on PMC and evangelism....

In 1900, 80 percent of the world's Christians lived in Europe and North America. Today, more than 60 percent of the world's Christians live outside those lands. Patrick Mead recently used a hyphothetical illustration of a Yugoslavian goatherd who came across a Bible and read it with no prior exposure to religion of any kind, and asked whether some of the issues that have historically divided us would even occur to the goatherd. As more and more people from other parts of the world, particular the southern hemisphere - Africa, India, Asia - are exposed to the Bible the illustration becomes less hypothetical and more reflective of reality. If we are willing to listen, hearing a fresh perspective can be a healthy thing....

One of the findings from the interview process of the Discovery phase was that among all the churches in our cluster fewer than 5% of the interviewees used God as the subject in a sentance with an active verb. Pat Kiefert described this as functional athieism. While I'm not convinced that description actually applies to 95% of the members of our congregations, I'm also not convinced that it doesn't apply to a sizeable number. To be a Christian means far more than merely to believe in God—as if the Christian faith were reducible to a system of beliefs—it means to be united with Jesus in and through the Holy Spirit, and to live a life that reflects his image....

Speaking of belief, Larry James recounted in a recent post an occasion while he was running with a friend and they encountered a homeless man and stopped to talk with him...

As we finished our run, Dan said, "I've noticed that you never 'hammer' people with the Jesus speech. You don't lead with 'Do you believe in Jesus?'"Reflecting on his comment as we continued our run, it hit me, in spite of my oxygen deprivation, that the most important question is not, "Does John believe in Jesus?" The real question is, "Does Larry believe in Jesus?"

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Last weekend one of the ministers at a congregation in Midland was returning from a wedding in the Dallas area with his family. His 16 year old son was driving and fell asleep; their suburban rolled, their 13 year old son was killed and their 18 year old daughter was seriously injured. In addition to praying for this family, and especially for their 16 year old, read this post by Brian Mashburn.

Hip Hop and LeBron

Barbara and I usually attempt to see the movies each year that receive Oscar nominations for Best Picture along with at least some of the ones with actors/actresses who are nominated. One of those that we did not get around to this past year was Blood Diamond. A few days ago Taylor rented it, and he and I watched it one night. There were a few themes that ran through the movie - the self-centered mercenary who in the end sacrificed himself for a friend; the father desperate to reunite and save his family; the oppressive violence wielded by the parties in power; the desperation of African refugees trying to escape unthinkable violence and violation.

But the thing that caught my attention more than anything was the Hip-Hop music that was constantly present among among the young men and boys who were taken from there families, and forced to either become soldiers or die a torturous death. Through the course of the movie they transformed into the same violent bullies that they had been abducted by, and a constant in almost all of their scenes was loud Hip-Hop music.

I have fairly eclectic tastes in the music that I enjoy listening to, but have to admit that from a personal enjoyment perspective, Hip-Hop is just not real high on my list. And I have a real problem with the violence and degradation towards women and others that exists in some of the gangsta lyrics. But, I also have an admiration for the art form, and even more so after reading this article in National Geographic that Larry James referenced in a recent post.

My initial assumption while watching the movie was that the Hip-Hop had been imported from America, but realize after reading the article that the music may have been locally produced. It is a style that is pervasive around the world, and is a language of a culture or cultures that I might understand better if I didn't automatically tune it out.

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As I write this I am witnessing one of the most incredible individual performances in NBA playoff history. LeBron James received quite a bit of criticism for not making a spectacular play at the end of both games 1 and 2 of the series between Cleveland and Detroit. Detroit won both of those games by 2 points, and in both games, LeBron had a final opportunity to score but did not. Tonight he has just taken the ball forcefully and definitively to the hole for dunks twice within the last 40 seconds of the game and has gotten his team to overtime. He has scored all of his teams points through the first overtime period and is carrying them through the second as well....

He just took the ball to the hole again for a layup with 2 seconds left to win game five for the Cavaliers. Nearly fifty points for the night, including the last 25 points consecutively for his team, as he willed them to a win. I don't believe that even his will and talent will be enough to overcome San Antonio in the finals, but tonight was a performance that will not be soon forgotten.

Gasoline - A Little Perspective

Like most people with email accounts, I occasionally get forwarded emails from friends, relatives, and/or complete strangers. Depending on the source I may or may not read them, but I never forward them on. I am making a semi-exception by posting this one because 1) it came from my parents, and 2) I just spent $75 filling up my tank. $3 per gallon gas has me seriously considering getting rid of my 11 year old, trouble-free, very comfortable, and long ago paid for Tahoe and replacing it with something more fuel efficient. One side of me says that I can buy an awful lot of gas for the cost of payments on a new vehicle...

At any rate, all of these examples do NOT imply that gasoline is cheap...

Compared with Gasoline......
Lipton Ice Tea 16 oz $1.19.....$9.52 per gallon
Diet Snapple 16 oz $1.29.....$10.32 per gallon
Gatorade 20 oz $1.59 .... $10.17 per gallon
Ocean Spray 16 oz $1.25 .... $10.00 per gallon
Brake Fluid 12 oz $3.15 .... $33.60 per gallon
Scope 1.5 oz $0.99 .... $84.48 per gallon
Vick's Nyquil 6 oz $8.35 .... $178.13 per gallon
Pepto Bismol 4 oz $3.85 .... $123.20 per gallon
Whiteout 7 oz $1.39 .... $2542 per gallon

And this is the REAL KICKER...Evian water 9 oz $1.49....$21.19 per gallon!
$21.19 for WATER And the buyers don't even know the source. (Evian spelled backwards is Naive.)

Memorial Day

Proverbs...and Joe Paterno

Reading through Proverbs in Eugene Peterson's The Message, I was struck by the way he worded some that I've read numerous times before...

Start with God - the first step in learning is bowing down to God; only fools thumb their noses at such wisdom and learning. 1:7

So - join the company of good men and women, keep your feet on the tried and true paths. It's the men who walk straight who will settle this land, the women with integrity who will last here. The corrupt will lose their lives, the dishonest will be gone for good. 2:20-22

Never walk away from someone who deserves help; your hand is God's hand for that person. Don't tell your neighbor, "Maybe some other time," or "Try me tomorrow," when the money's right there in your pocket. Don't figure out ways of taking advantage of your neighbor when he's sitting there trusting and unsuspecting. 3:27-29

Keep vigilant watch over your heart, that's where life starts. Don't talk out of both sides of your mouth; avoid careless banter, white lies, and gossip. 4:23-24

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I have long been an admirer of Joe Paterno and the Penn State football program. It seems entirely appropriate to me, in a post on proverbs, to include a link to this article about Paterno. There is a good side to college athletics...

Singing: The Way to Heaven's Door

One of the books in my stack to get to is Darryl Tippens' book on spiritual formation, Pilgrim Heart. The 12th chapter addresses singing, and was distributed in booklet form at the Pepperdine lectureship. Here are a couple of excerpts to ponder...

Christian hymns invite us to delight in God's presence, not merely think about him. Music awakens us to God's matchless power, beauty, and transcendence – his sheer otherness. Music can simultaneously make us feel God's grandeur and our smallness compared to him. This is why, whenever a worshiper approaches God – as seen in Isaiah 6:1-5 or throughout the Book of Revelation – the worshiper invariably resorts to symbolic language, image, and song to describe the uncanny experience. These are the "tools" of the worshiper to suggest the unsearchable, ineffable nature of God. "O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!" (Romans 11:33). p147

It is possible that the quest for the ideal hymn perfectly performed could obscure the goal of meeting God in worship. George Ives was a church musician and the father of the great American composer Charles Ives. The father taught his son to respect the power of vernacular music. Concerning a stone-mason who sang irritatingly off key, the father instructed Charles: Watch him closely and reverently, look into his face and hear the music of the ages. Don't pay too much attention to the sounds–for if you do, you may miss the music. You won't get a wild, heroic ride to heaven on pretty little sounds.

In the so-called "worship wars" too many people, trapped in futile debates about the "pretty little sounds," have sadly missed "the wild, heroic ride to heaven." If we would be but more patient and flexible, recognizing that our singing is our gift to God (and therefore not primarily about our tastes or what we like), then it would matter less whether the song selection matches our personal preferences. Christian music is first and foremost a simultaneous offering of our voices to God, a receiving of God's word to us, and a statement of our faith proffered to the world. If we must err in one direction, a missional attitude is prudent. In the spirit of Luther we should advocate music that wins the hearts of the young and the untaught. p154

60 Minutes Segment on Homeless Patients

I'm passing this post along to you at Larry James' request...

Plan now to tune in to 60 MINUTES tomorrow evening on CBS televison. A segment of the program is entitled "Dumped on Skid Row."

Here is an advance publicity piece that we received from CBS television describing the segment:

Are some Los Angeles hospitals simply throwing homeless patients out on the street after discharging them, literally dumping them on Skid Row --even if they come from other places in Los Angeles and are in no condition to fend for themselves?

While there have been allegations of hospital dumping for years, people only started paying attention recently, after several shelters installed special cameras on the street to try to capture the practice.

Anderson Cooper’s investigation will air this Sunday, May 20, on 60 MINUTES (7PM ET/PT on CBS).

For more details you can check out the CBS News website at:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/1998/07/08/60minutes/main13502.shtml.

If you have any further questions, please contact Robin Sanders at sandersr@cbsnews.com.

I continue to be amazed at just how expendible the poor have become in this country.

I hope you'll watch the report.


Please pass this post on to your friends, family and associates.

More Missional Vision...

The remainder of Edward Fudge's comment on missional vision...

In an "attractional" church, success is usually measured by the number of people in attendance, the size of the offering and (using those calculators) the growth of the institution itself. In a "missional" church, success will not be measured by counting heads or dollars but by faithfulness to God's mission, deepening faith and the development of Christ-like disciples. Obviously these intangible indicators are much harder to assess than those borrowed from the business world. That does not bother missional people, however, because their focus is not on the institutional church to begin with. It is rather on the kingdom and mission of God.

Missional people understand that the church is called to be an expression of God's kingdom during the interim between Christ's first coming and his final appearing. God has planted the church in the world as a model community, an advance demonstration of the redeemed society of the new heavens and earth to come. But they understand that even at its best the church is always a flawed and incomplete expression of God's kingdom. They confess that sometimes the church scarcely resembles God's kingdom at all. To the extent that the church does express God's kingdom now, its presence in this world is a sign of God's kingdom that has come and is yet to come. And to the extent the church aligns itself with the mission of God, it is also an agent of God's kingdom to which that mission is surely leading.

This vision of a missional church is old truth in new clothes. It is the vision of discipleship we hear in all the parables and teachings of Jesus. It is the sort of Christianity we discover throughout the Book of Acts, the kind of church the Epistles all call us to become. Consider, for example, the following missional goals which in reality are New Testament values: * Using God's mission as the standard for determining priorities and allocating resources (Matt. 6:33; 2 Cor. 8:1-5; 9:8-15). * Measuring success by sacrifice and self-giving (Mark 12:41-44). * Placing kingdom concerns ahead of any particular congregation or denomination (Acts 13:1-3). * Expecting believers to meet high standards (Rom. 12:1-2; Col. 1:28). * Participatory worship meetings open to the fresh leading of the Spirit (1 Cor. 14:26). * Learning truth to obey it and not merely to know it (Eph. 4:20-24; 1 Tim. 1:5-7). * Every believer a missionary on God's mission (Phil. 2:13; Eph. 2:10). * Being honest, authentic and real (1 Thes. 2:3-10; Eph. 4:25). * Changing the world in keeping with principles of God's kingdom (Titus 2:11-14; 3:8). The list could go on and on.

Those who wish to be missional people, God's fellow-workers on behalf of his kingdom, must cultivate a personal relationship with Jesus Christ as living members of his spiritual body the church. We must become a people of prayer, a people fed by the Word, a people totally dependent on God and not on ourselves, a people guided and empowered by the Holy Spirit. Such a prescription holds little attraction to a fleshly-oriented, self-centered or worldly-minded church. On the other hand, nothing less than this prescription will enable us effectively to become God's fellow-workers through whom his mission is carried out in this world.
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Copyright 2007 by Edward Fudge. Permission hereby granted to reprint this gracEmail in its entirety without change, with credit given and not for financial profit.

Division

This from Patrick Mead's Tentpegs - you can read the entire post here...


...Pretend with me for a moment. Pretend that you are a goat herder in Yugoslavia (that’s right. You are so far off the beaten track that you don’t even know there isn’t a Yugoslavia anymore). A Bible falls out of the sky right in front of you, in your language. Let’s stretch this a bit and assume you are literate, so you sit and read the thing — perhaps several times. While these questions are primarily directed at my own religious tribe, I think we could come up with some interesting questions for a variety of religions.

1. Would you come up with the idea that the Lord’s Supper was commanded once a week, day, month or year? Would you assume the elements are holy and shouldn’t be touched except by a priest? Would you assume that it was all right to fight the other goat herders about this?

2. Would you assume that instrumental music was wrong? Would you assume that God only liked certain kinds of music? Would you think God cared whether the words were memorized, chanted, read from a book, or projected on a screen, downloaded to an iPod…..?

3. Would you assume that you needed to build a building and start Women’s Day programs, Senior Suppers, Youth Pizza Night…?

4. When you told others about what you’d read, would you insist that they dress up first? And sit in rows facing you while remaining silent?

This list could go on and on and the answer would always be the same: no. Then why are all of these — and hundreds more — issues that cause people to leave churches, call for debates, proclaim this person or that congregation out of fellowship, and enforce that division by fiat, shunning, papers, and seminars?...

A Missional Vision

The following is the second of a multipart gracemail from Edward Fudge.

THE 'MISSIONAL' VISION:Old Truths in New Clothes (2)

If the church is to have a future in the countries that once composed "Christendom," missional church advocates tell us, we who constitute the church must undergo what the Apostle Paul calls a "renewal of the mind." That means that we must re-imagine the ideal which God calls the church to become. We must rethink the church's character and reformulate its purpose and goals. This call to think in a new way does not suggest that we think other than biblically about what it means to be the church. It means that we return to a biblical way of thinking, a way of thinking that changed considerably after Constantine and Theodosius changed the church from a radical and persecuted counter-culture to the official institutional religious establishment of the Roman Empire.

The very word "missional" is crucial to this new understanding in several respects. It reminds us that Christian "mission" is not something for special people who go overseas to foreign lands. It is the work of every Christian wherever each one already lives. It says that the church is not intended to be a comfortable religious "club" for which we occasionally recruit new members. It is rather a group of people who are themselves called and assigned a mission by God. The adjective "missional" sometimes stands in to "attractional" -- a word that describes the kind of church with which we already are most familiar.

The "attractional" church expects to fulfil its mission by attracting outsiders to special events at the church building. The "missional" church will emphasize meeting people where they normally live and work and play. Meeting people this way is not merely social. It is purposeful, a way for us to join in God's own mission. This is how we form genuine human relationships that bridge the worlds of faith and unbelief. This is "incarnational" Christianity, meaning that it requires us to get involved as real people with real people -- and not just people like us -- even when that is hard, tough and dirty.

Poverty Simulation

During the week before our winter break we at Region 10 have very little direct interaction with our school districts. During that week each year the 150+ professional staff in the Division of Instruction participate together in 2 days of professional development. This year one of those days was spent in a poverty simulation exercise.

Nearly 1 of every 4 kids enrolled in Texas schools lives in poverty; that percentage is even higher in urban areas. The poverty simulation was designed to build better understanding of the issuses faced by the families of these students, and of the systemic forces that combine to place formidable obstacles in their paths to success in school.

Several staff members were assigned roles in the various institutions within the community: a hospital - the primary employer, a bank, a check cashing store, a grocery store, a pawn shop, a convenience store, a school, a social services agency, a landlord, etc. As they entered the room, everyone else was given a card with the name, age, and gender of the character they would play and assigned to a table along with the rest of the members of his or her 'family'. At the table was an envelope with all the details about the family and its situation, along with various resources that the family had accumulated.

The objective for each 'family' in the simulation was to survive for a month - the simulation consisted of four 25-minute 'weeks', with a 5-minute 'weekend'. During the course of the 'month' the family faced the issues that the poor deal with on a regular basis - low-wage jobs/unemployment; inflated costs for food, accessing cash, and transportation; lack of health care; child care; shelter; plus those unexpected things that seem to occur on a regular basis.

I will talk about my experience in the simulation in another post, but for now I will mention a couple of observations from the simulation.

The first is that it costs more to live when you are poor. When your only viable food options are convenience stores and fast foods, the purchasing cost is higher and the health cost is higher. When you don't have enough money to meet the minimum requirements for a bank account, you either pay higher fees to the bank or you are forced to use check-cashing stores or payday loan services where the fees are usurious. When you can't afford reliable transportation your job options are limited to those locations served by public transportation. When you work in a low-paying job the chances are great that you don't have health insurance provided; in turn, it cost more to access the health care system for routine or emergency care because you bear the entire cost rather than a co-pay. The list goes on...see this chart in Business Week for more examples.

The second is that when you are poor it requires a tremendous amount of energy and resilience just to survive, let alone try to improve your station. The obstables are great and the resources few. And just when you think you are beginning to make a little progress, some unforeseen expense comes along to put you further in the hole. There are few, if any safety nets, and sometimes there is no amount of hard work and determination that is enough to maintain your situation, let alone improve it.

A third observation is that poverty is a self-perpetuating cycle. Let me give one small example from my own simulation. Keep in mind that I am well-educated and well-intentioned, and am well aware of the role that fathers have instilling values and expectations in their children. In the simulation I was the father of 3 children - the oldest was a school aged daughter who wanted me to help with homework and excitedly wanted to show me what she had done in school. I was so concerned with trying to keep a roof over our heads that I did not have the time to interact with her - I did not ignore her as part of my role assignment, it was the natural condition in which I found myself. Think about the implications of how that plays out over and over in the real world of poverty...

As Far as the East is From the West

The LORD is merciful and gracious; he is slow to get angry and full of unfailing love.
He will not constantly accuse us, nor remain angry forever.
He has not punished us for all our sins, nor does he deal with us as we deserve.
For his unfailing love toward those who fear him is as great as the height of the heavens above the earth.
He has removed our rebellious acts as far away from us as the east is from the west. Psalm 103:8-13

God has this bountiful feast prepared; the table is set, the food is wonderful, and he longs for us to sit at his table and savor the banquet. But there is a problem. The gulf that divides us is so deep and so wide that we might as well be on opposite ends of the earth. The chasm that is created by our sin is impossible for us to navigate. But God, in his unfailing love, has removed our sin through the cross. Now it is our sin that is as far from us as the east is from the west, and we are free to sit at God's table and share in his banquet.

Good News for South Dallas

I was delighted to read in yesterday's Morning News that Baylor Health Care System is planning to build a Diabetes Prevention and Treatment Center in the Frazier Courts neighborhood in South Dallas. As I read the article two familiar names jumped out at me. Dr. Jim Walton has been an active partner with Central Dallas Ministries in providing health services to the poor, and Don Williams is one of my heroes, a man I greatly admire.

There are a number of reasons why this is good news for that community - one reason is simply that it brings a positive and needed resource to a much neglected area. A second is the pervasiveness of Diabetes and Diabete-related issues among the poor. The lack of grocery stores in the neighborhood, the lack of health care, the general lack or resources all are contributing factors to a Diabetes rate in South Dallas that is nearly 3 times the national average.

I've copied part of the article below...

"We're trying to not [only] treat symptoms, and a lot of times diabetes – the disease of diabetes – really could just represent a symptom of something more," said Dr. James W. Walton, vice president and chief health equity officer at Baylor.
The goal, Dr. Walton said, is for the center to function as a base for health workers dispatched into the community to provide screening and lifestyle education.

"A lot of the work happens away from the center, it happens away from the community, at the school," Dr. Walton said. "We have this vision of block captains, people that work from other locations in the community in order to achieve the objectives. "

But programming based at the center would also focus on factors traditionally outside the realm of most health care systems. For example, governmental entities, nonprofits, religious groups and other community organizations would be brought in to collaborate and combat unemployment, poverty, lack of education and the absence of grocery stores, housing and economic development.

"The problems are so entrenched in the South Dallas-Fair Park area that it's got to be something very comprehensive," said Marcus Martin, director of the J. McDonald Williams Institute, a key collaborator with Baylor on the project. The Institute is the research arm of the nonprofit Foundation for Community Empowerment.

In 2004, the hospital discharge rate per 100,000 residents due to long-term complications from the disease was 320 in South Dallas, according to statistics compiled by Parkland Memorial Hospital. The rate was about 110 per 100,000 residents countywide and 120 statewide.

Testimonies

One of the sessions I attended at Pepperdine was co-taught by Josh Graves and Sara Barton from Rochester College. Sara was talking about getting people to give testimonials as a part of her responsibility for planning chapel programs, and commented that until recently she had never felt like she had a testimony worth sharing. She had grown up in a Christian home, gone to a Christian college, experienced her share of life's ups and downs, but had not experienced any of the particularly dramatic moments that made for a "good" testimony (a perspective that I could fully relate to). She said that she had come to realize that she DID have a testimony, that she had a story to tell of what God had done for her...

Last night in the Rotunda class Dwight opened things up by reading the passage in Luke where Jesus cast out a legion of demons from a man into a herd of pigs. Afterwards the man asked Jesus if he could follow him, and Jesus' response was "No, go back to your family and tell them all the wonderful things God has done for you." (Luke 8:39) After he finished reading two Skillman members gave testimonies of what God has done for them. Nothing dramatic, but stories of their faith and journeys to this point in their lives...

Whether we recognize it or not, our lives are a testimony - whether good or bad. But verbal testimonies of what God has done can strengthen the body, and can strengthen the persons giving them. And they don't have to be dramatic to be effective.

Homeless in Dallas

One of the "ups" during the month I was away from my blog was the annual Urban Ministries Prayer Breakfast at the Anatole near downtown. Central Dallas Ministries has been sponsoring this for a number of years, and it is always a treat to get together with several hundred others who share a concern for the plight of the poor in this city. There is typically a noteworthy speaker and a concert of prayer.

This year's breakfast featured a moving testimony by Wyshina Harris, a resident of one of the poorest apartment complexes in the city (you can read it here) and a forum of 7 of the mayoral candidates who were each given a few minutes to address specific issues affecting the poor. I was also delighted that Tino Trejo was on the dais to give the invocation.

One of the features at this year's breakfast was this video that Central Dallas Ministries produced for the event. It tells part of the life story of five people who have struggled with homelessness in Dallas for many years.

Defending the Fort

Phil Ware had a great Heartlight article yesterday - here is an excerpt from it...

So much of our approach to faith depends on our perception of what the goal of our faith is.

Are we on a journey or are we defending the fort? It can't be both. You can't defend the fort when you are caravanning to a new and better home (Hebrews 11:13-16; 13:14)!

If we are daily being conformed to be more like Jesus (2 Corinthians 3:18), then how can we be overly critical of those who find themselves at different points in their own journey?

My own church family is made up of newborns and people over 100 years old. Our journeys are different. The language of hearts is different. The music imprinted in our DNA is different. The primary modes of communication are different. The way we comprehend truth is different. (See www.m6trix.com for some examples of why this is true.) But, our destination and our Father and our Lord are the same. So rather than being so critical of others who are not where we are, why not pray for their journey to our common destination? Rather than trying to defend the fortresses we left behind to pursue our higher and heavenly goal, why not encourage other caravaners along the way to press on toward that goal?

How can we be overly critical of those who find themselves at different points in the journey?

Does this mean we give up on core values or God's revealed truth? No! But it does mean we take seriously Jesus' call to look for fruit rather than judging motives. It does mean that we value those who sojourn with us even if they are taking different routes through the wilderness. It does mean that we welcome folks into our caravan who are at different points in the journey (Romans 14:1; Romans 15:7). It does mean that we focus on Jesus (Hebrews 12:1-3) and the upward call of God rather than the flawed human embodiments of our Savior we call churches.

Home Again

Taylor and I pulled out of Malibu at 1:00 Saturday afternoon and pulled up in front of the house last night a little before 9. Other than driving through a downpour between Sweetwater and Abilene, amid reports breaking in on the radio of a tornado sighting and tennis-ball sized hail moving through communities that I had never heard of and that were not on the map. Turns out that we were moving parallel with a serious storm about 12 miles to our south - a little dicey feeling for a while, but did not really impact our trip.

Driving across Arizona we listened to Taylor's ipod - Jack Johnson, Dave Matthews, Coldplay, Dispatch, Mason Jennings, the Black Crows, Augustana, and even a little Acapella. I'm not that familiar with contemporary musicians, but if what I heard on this trip was a good sample he has pretty good taste. I'm glad for the opportunity to make the trip with my son.

Pepperdine Day 3

Just got out of the third day of a 3-day series of afternoon lectures with Wade Hodges, and wanted to get some of this down while it is still fresh. The series has been based in Luke and focused on the people that Jesus ate with. Jesus was criticized by the religious leaders of his day because he ate with sinners and tax collectors. 2 particular thoughts from today.

The first is to imagine the expression on God's face when he looks at you - is it one of joy? anger? disgust? longing? pleasure? disappointment? pride? sorrow? Wade suggested that our perception of how God looks at us drives how we look at others.

I can see times in my life when each of those emotions were likely to have been on God's face when he looked at me, but I think maybe the predominant expression is one of impatient expectation, mixed with loving disappointment that says "When are you going to get serious about loving my people?" and "Why do you spend so much time and energy consuming the candy of this world when I have so much more to offer?"

The second thought from today was his analysis that the greatest crisis facing the church today has nothing to do with budgets, declining attendance, or worship issues, (In the 2+ years that I've been an elder I would estimate that at least 90% of the discussions I've been involved with have either been about one or more of these directly, or were influenced by how whatever was being discussed would impact one or more of these) but that the greatest crisis facing the church today is our inability to balance a call to repentence with the unconditional love and acceptance that Jesus showed to those he encountered.

This thought tied so well with the message that Harold Shank brought Wednesday evening about 2 kinds of churches - one where you can't get in if you are broken, and one where you have to be broken to get in. Wade put it like this - if you repent and clean up your act, we will accept you (the pharisees' view of who would be allowed at the table) vs we will accept you as you are, and anticipate that repentence will occur at some point (Jesus' view of who would be allowed at the table). Acceptance does not equal endorsement of sin, but neither does it depend on its elimination as a prior condition.

Plenty of meat to chew on there.

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Monte Cox hit a "home" run with this morning's keynote about living in exile and being at home. And David Fleer bats cleanup tonight.

More From Malibu

It has been a good 2 days and I anticipate that tomorrow will be, also. Among the highlights have been seeing Taylor in this environment - he is comfortable here and maturing well.... The speakers have ranged from very good to outstanding - especially the keynoters - Glenn Pemberton, John York, Harold Shank, Yukikazu Obata, and Dan Rodriquez have all delivered powerful and challenging messages from Jeremiah; tomorrow's promise to continue that trend - my classmate Monte Cox always does a good job and David Fleer is one of the best I have heard.... It has been good meeting and hearing from some of the bloggers I read - I've been in sessions led by Wade Hodges and by Josh Graves, and have gotten to meet David Underwood; and it is always a treat to see/hear Mike Cope.... It was good seeing some old friends and meeting a few new ones at the Harding reception tonight.... It also doesn't hurt that this is one of the most beautiful places in the world, and the clear sunny days and cool evenings with the full moon shining on the pacific only enhance that beauty.... There is one question that has me bumfuzzled - What happened to the Mavericks?

Greetings From Malibu

It is lunch break on the first full day of the Pepperdine Lectureship. This is my first time to actually attend any lectureships. I sang here with a combined group from Skillman and Preston Road several years ago, but didn't really get to any of the other sessions. I worked during Harding's lectureship when I was a student and occasionally got to a few of those sessions. This time I am here just to soak in whatever I can, and so far it has been good. The theme is Hear the Word of the Lord from Jeremiah, and the 2 keynotes so far have been outstanding. I'll try to give a little more detail later....

The main reason that I made the decision to attend this year is that Taylor has just finished a good freshman year here; he will be at Heidleburg next year at Pepperdine's campus there, and he has to pack up and drive home with all his stuff. So, I decided to come to lectureship and then drive back across country with him at the end of the week. He is driving one of the shuttles around campus during lecturship - no small task if you have ever seen the inclines on the campus roads...

I have been awol from the blog for a while - haven't had much energy to write, and haven't even been turning on my computer most evenings so I haven't kept up with the other blogs I like to read. It has been a month of ups and downs, and busy. Within a week's time both Larry James and Rubel Shelley spoke at Skillman - definitely a couple of the ups. There was the shooting at Virginia Tech - definitely a down, especially for parents with kids living in a dormitory. Lots more going on, some of which I may get around to writing about, but I am feeling energized by being here in Malibu. Pepperdine is a great place.

Sunday!

But very early on Sunday morning the women came to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. They found that the stone covering the entrance had been rolled aside. So they went in, but they couldn't find the body of the Lord Jesus. They were puzzled, trying to think what could have happened to it. Suddenly, two men appeared to them, clothed in dazzling robes. The women were terrified and bowed low before them. Then the men asked, "Why are you looking in a tomb for someone who is alive? He isn't here! He has risen from the dead! Don't you remember what he told you back in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be betrayed into the hands of sinful men and be crucified, and that he would rise again the third day?"

Easter Song

Saturday

Scripture describes in vivid detail the the pain and suffering that culminated in Jesus' death on Friday. Scripture elaborates on the excitement and wonder of his followers when they discover on Sunday that he is alive. But we can only imagine what Saturday was like - possibly the longest, most hopeless day man has ever known - because scripture is silent about that Saturday.

It would seem that the disciples did not understand on Saturday that the work of salvation had been accomplished on Friday, and they had not yet realized the hope that would come from the resurrection on Sunday. That Saturday was, in a way, a foreshadow of the time in which we live. I have heard it described as 'the already but the not yet' - the period of time between Jesus' saving accomplishment on the cross and his glorious return. And much of the world today lives in Saturday - without the knowledge or understanding of what the cross meant and without the hope that the resurrection brings.

Because we live with the knowledge of our reconciliation to God - the already - and because we live with the hope of eternal life - the not yet - we live in greatful obedience. Not to become reconciled, but because we already are. That obedience was defined by Jesus as loving God with all our heart, and loving our neighbor as our self.

Friday

By this time it was noon, and darkness fell across the whole land until three o'clock. The light from the sun was gone. And suddenly, the thick veil hanging in the Temple was torn apart. Then Jesus shouted, "Father, I entrust my spirit into your hands!" And with those words he breathed his last.

When the captain of the Roman soldiers handling the executions saw what had happened, he praised God and said, "Surely this man was innocent." And when the crowd that came to see the crucifixion saw all that had happened, they went home in deep sorrow. But Jesus' friends, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance watching.

Now there was a good and righteous man named Joseph. He was a member of the Jewish high council, but he had not agreed with the decision and actions of the other religious leaders. He was from the town of Arimathea in Judea, and he had been waiting for the Kingdom of God to come. He went to Pilate and asked for Jesus' body. Then he took the body down from the cross and wrapped it in a long linen cloth and laid it in a new tomb that had been carved out of rock. This was done late on Friday afternoon, the day of preparation for the Sabbath.

It's Friday...But Sunday's Coming

One of the most powerful videos I have seen is this one produced by Rob Thomas at Igniter Media. I know it's not literally Friday today, but the despair of a 'Friday' can attack at any time. Whatever the reason for a 'Friday', it can be overcome because Sunday indeed is coming.

Another Look...And a Blessing for Travelers

I think I like this look better...

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Three of our neighbors joined us this evening to pray for and offer a blessing to a fourth neighbor who, along with his teenage son, will be leaving for Uganda later this month for a 2-week mission trip. I ended the time with this blessing...

The love and affection of heaven be to you,
To guard and to cherish you.
May God shield you on every step,
May He aid you on every path,
And may He hold you safe on every slope,
On every hill and on every plain;
On earth and on sea until you are home again.

And for your family,
May he keep them safe, keep them whole,
and keep them from harm's way,
until you are home again.

MRI Churches

One last (maybe) post on Leonard Sweet and the Zoe Leadership Conference. After describing the perfect storm facing churches today, Sweet talked about the need to transition from what he called APC churches to what he called MRI churches. Neither type is inherantly good or bad, right or wrong - that's not the point. The APC church was effective in its time, but its time was not post modern, post christendom, post scale.

A quick aside here - In any discussion involving change there is often a tendancy to disparage the new and defend the old or to disregard the old and embrace the new. It is important to recognize that people do not deliberately choose to be 'mistaken' - we come to the positions we hold with the best intentions, making the best use we can of the information and understanding at our disposal, within the context of our time and place. It is incumbant upon us to respect and honor those who have long ago gone before us as well as those with whom we differ today - probably a topic to address more fully at another time.

Back to the APC/MRI comparison, keeping in mind that the APC model grew out of a time when the church had a different place in mainstream culture than it does today.

APC ------------- vs ---------- MRI

Attractional ----vs--- Missional
Propositional --vs--- Relational
Colonial --vs--- Incarnational

Attractional - fundamental focus is getting people to come to and stay with the church. Programs and decisions are implemented in an attempt to satisfy people's needs and preferences - whether children's programs, worship styles, color of the paint in the auditorium - the focus is on what will get, and retain, people into the church building.

Propositional - fundamental focus is on being right or correct. Not a recent phenomenon - the pharisees were a prime example - there is the belief that there is a correct position or answer that can logically or rationally be found for any issue, and the goal is to convince ourselves and others that our position is the correct one.

Colonial - fundamental focus is on reproducing the pattern that is attractionally successful and propositionally correct. A franchise model - the McDonald's philosophy - the goal is to reproduce clones or semi-clones that are modeled after the right pattern.

This model is very much a part of my heritage and still very prevalent today. It is a heritage that I value and I love those who are a part of it, but I believe that the model is one that will not work in the context of a postmodern, post christendom world. Sweet says that the model that more nearly reflects the model in Acts, and that has a chance of reaching people in today's world is...

Missional - the focus is on going out - among the community, among the people, among the world - and 'as you are going make disciples'; there is an attractional aspect, but the attraction is to Jesus, not to the church and its building, programs, etc. The mission statement is the great commission.

Relational - the focus is on bringing people into relationship with God by building relationships rather than by convincing them of the correctness of our doctrine. There is a focus on learning to love our neighbor rather than being able to debate them.

Incarnational - the focus is on living in a way that reflects Jesus, on becoming the gospel, to be good news to a lost world. There is an emphasis on living among people and treating them as Jesus did those he lived among, addressing the needs that Jesus was concerned with.

March Madness Continues...

WVU got no respect from the tournament selection committee, but vindicated itself with the NIT championship. Not that I believe they would be in the final four, but they did beat UCLA a few weeks ago...the final shot in the semifinals should be in highlight reels for some time to come...

I still have 3 of 4 teams in my bracket, and stand by my prediction of Florida over Ohio State in the finals....

What I've Learned Through the Suffering of Another

Last night Ray Thompson shared this testimony with the Rotunda class. I asked his permission to post it here. Because of the public nature of the internet, I am removing the last names.
I found particularly insightful Ray's expressing that "giving money is a crutch I've often used to show "sympathy," without the "empathy" that comes from being involved in someone's life," and that "I saw myself as the giver, not God."

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What I've Learned Through the Suffering of Another

I think we are often reluctant to share our spiritual journeys and experiences with one another because we think it is sort of “patting ourselves on the back,” OK? But I know this class will not judge my words in this way tonight….

I’ve written my thoughts and will read them….so I won’t ramble…

How many of you remember Kent ----? Several of you, especially Bill & Mary, helped him directly and a number of you gave him money. Kent is a man about in his 30's who came to Dallas from California. He suffers from schizophrenia and qualifies for federal and state assistance as a mentally ill person; he also has severe asthma. He receives free medications for these conditions.

Months ago, Bill & Mary found him at the MHMR housing facility, near Skillman and Abrams, and brought him to church. Kent was raised in the church; his dad was a minister at one time but his parents have been divorced for many years. Their differing views of Kent and his problems, as well as their age and resources, have not provided any support for Kent in recent years. He attended ACU and studied Bible, Greek, and Hebrew. He has proved to be a very moral person, who tries to live as a Christian.

In his 20's, Kent married a girl and they have two children. She is from a prominent family in the Broadway Church in Lubbock, who Avalyn and I knew. However, when mental illness overtook Kent, he abandoned his wife and children, and began moving around the country. He ended up in California, where he finally received good treatment for his mental condition. Such treatment is free in California.

Although we didn't know it at first, Kent came back to Texas because he thought he could control his mental illness (with proper medication), and he wanted to try and reconciled with his wife and children, who live in Ft. Worth.

I entered Kent's life when Bill told me that Kent wanted to get on the Internet to apply for job interviews. You know me, I'm always interested in sharing my computer skills, so I invited Kent to my house one Sunday afternoon, beginning an association with Kent that was to last for many months, and is still on-going. During this time I was to learn a lot about Kent, but even more about myself and about God's will in my life.

At that time I can say that my feelings about Kent went something like this:

• Helping him get on the Internet was easy and fun for me. I did not expect to do more than this.
• When he began to ask for other assistance I could hardly refuse, but I didn't volunteer for anything he didn't ask.
• I was wary of him "working me" with words of appreciation, while I really had no way to know if things were the way they appeared on the surface.
• I was reluctant to ask the hard questions to really know what was happening in Kent's life, for that would really get me "involved" with him.
• The money spent was not a problem for me, and I felt good about offering material help. I've come to realize that giving money is a crutch I've often used to show "sympathy," without the "empathy" that comes from being involved in someone's life.
• Perhaps most telling, I saw myself as the giver, not God. Yes, I prayed for Kent, but mostly that he would find a job, become self-supporting, and relieve me of his support.

In the months that have followed, I've come to realize that God brought Kent into my life to teach me about real compassion and to trust in Him instead of myself.

As God began to guide me (without me realizing it), things got worse instead of better. I offered Kent advice and wise council, but he didn't always take it. From time to time Kent's mental problems worsened and I had no idea how to help him. When these episodes occurred, Kent was often angry about the minimal care available from our Texas mental health department. At times just talking to him was really scary. I discussed this with Charme and Dwight, but we concluded the Church really has no resources for helping people with mental problems.

For the first time, the thought crept into my mind that we were going to have to depend on God to help Kent...but it was scary trying to understand how and when this would happen. I began to pray in a different way.

The saga of Kent is ongoing, and it is not a happy one. It's still not clear what the Lord's plan is for him, but there have been some signs along the way that God is caring for him…Kent's six months at the MHMR apartments expired, and he decided to move to Irving and go on the streets. We didn't know what else to do, so Bill moved him and his few possessions to Irving. Kent found the MacArthur Street Church, and made friends there. This was a relief, and I lost track of Kent and his troubled life...

Months later, I had a gathering at my house of some old friends from the Tech Bible Chair, where Avalyn and I met and married. One of the couples who came, Dale and Kathy, are members at MacArthur and I asked them if they knew Kent. It turned out that Kathy had taken up where we had left off! She was taking him to his MHMR appointments, to church, etc. We shared our experiences and frustrations with Kent and pledged to stay in touch. I wondered, "Did the Lord make this connection between Kent's caregivers?" Now I know He did…

Dale and Kathy were equally perplexed about how to help Kent, and soon another crisis was brewing… In spite of our advice against it, Kent finally made a move to be with his wife, Shelley… He found her in a small apartment with her children, barely getting by. She had a part-time job but could not support her family and pay her rent. Kent contacted several at Skillman and Bill and others helped find furniture for them. Kent carried a huge load of guilt about abandoning his family, and Shelley played on this guilt to gain his financial support. Kathy reported that they were having serious troubles, financially and with their relationship. Shelley soon kicked him out on the street. We had no solution for Kent…

One day, Kathy called to say that Kent had been able to get a part-time job at Target in Arlington and finally was able to rent a small apartment of his own, within walking distance of his job. Was this part of the plan we were waiting on the Lord to show us? More and more, I was learning to wait for God to help Kent... Things seemed to be looking up.

Several months passed with no news from Kent or Kathy; I continued to pray for the Lord to watch over him and to support Dale and Kathy. One morning Kathy called to say that Kent was missing. She had not been able to contact him by phone he had not been to work, and no one answered the door at the apartment…at first. A day later she tried the apartment again and was surprised when Shelly answered the door! Shelly said that Kent had had a seizure and she had called 911 and they had taken him away in an ambulance! She had no idea where he was, and didn't seem to care.

I live in Richardson…a long way from Arlington, but the next morning I got a call from a mental health social worker at the Richardson hospital, telling me that Kent was there and had given her my name. I still have no idea how Kent ended up six blocks from my house, but I don't think it was a coincidence... I called Kathy and we gave thanks that he was OK.

The hospital was treating Kent for severe depression and they were glad to get background information that I could supply. Kent's story was a sad one, "Ray I thought that Shelley loved me and I let her move in with me when they kicked her out of her apartment. But, she has just taken over my life! I have asked her to move but she has delayed for weeks. I guess I just blacked out; I don't remember what happened or how I got here." I called Target to let them know Kent was in the hospital, took him some clothes, and Kathy and I talked about what to do about getting him back in his apartment. The doctor treating Kent said that under no circumstances was he to be with Shelley again. Kent stayed with me for a week, to avoid Shelley and so he could get back to work. Kathy came and picked him up at the start of his shift and I picked him up at 10pm to bring him home.

How did we get Shelley out of his apartment? We had no leverage, as Kent had not told the apartment manager she was there and might lose his apartment or have to pay more rent if we pursued eviction. I talked to Shelley but she was not about to move, "until I can talk to Kent!" she said. But…one morning she was gone…

Things were sort of back to normal when Kent developed a very severe toothache. I contacted my dentist, Richard ---- (they were members at Skillman years ago), Kathy brought him over, and the tooth was fixed. Thank you Lord!

However, in the past week Kent had to go to the emergency room for another mental breakdown, and our journey together continues….

At this point in our journey my feelings about our relationship are something like this:

• I have come to really care about Kent as a person, and to appreciate the despair he deals with because of his mental illness.
• I'm shocked at what I've learned about the plight of the mentally ill in our society, and the minimal resources our state provides.
• Although it's still scary, I've learned something about how to "help" when you have no answers, and must wait on God and his timetable.
• I have no idea what the Lord has in mind for Kent, but I'm sure He cares for him, and I hope I can continue to see and do His will.
• My life has been blessed, and changed, by Kent's suffering.

Pray for Kent…thank you.

Ray Thompson

Missional in the Hood

Last year about this time I wrote about having had a St. Patrick's day party for our neighborhood, and commented that I was embarrassed because that was the first time in over 15 years that many of them had been invited into our home. Particularly, I was convicted as we had been talking about becoming more missional.

Since then, we have had multiple occasions of neighborhood get-togethers, and have gotten to know many of our neighbors. We have another one scheduled for next week, and I thought I would share with you the email I sent this evening. Not trying to pat myself on the back, but hoping that it might be an encouragement to you...

Our next neighborhood meeting will be Tuesday, Apr. 3 at our house (1427 Stagecoach). At 7 pm, for those who are comfortable doing so, we will gather for a short neighborhood blessing for Simon and Job Smith, who will be leaving for a mission trip to Uganda within the next couple of weeks. At 7:15 we will begin our normal discussion of neighborhood news and concerns. Please feel welcome to come at either 7 or 7:15, as you prefer. We will not be able to deliver the notices to each house this weekend, so please let your neighbor know, if you don't see them on the email list.

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I recently read the following news account and was reminded of my own responsibility to you, my neighbors, and of how blessed we are to have you all as neighbors...

Larry's remains were recently found in his house in a skeletal, mummified condition. No one had seen him since Hurricane Rita that had devastated Beaumont, Texas, nearly 18 months ago. The body was found on top of the bed, just like he had gone in to take a nap and never awakened. They are not sure if Larry expired shortly before the hurricane's arrival or shortly afterward. His house had not been severely damaged, so no one had actually gone inside to check on him and most folks just felt he had left before the approaching hurricane and never returned. A prospective buyer for the house found Larry's body. The house was put up for auction because of unpaid taxes.

Sadly, no one had really missed Larry. Although he had family in the city, he didn't want to see them. His neighbors made assumptions about his absence. Who knows, if someone had been more aware of his status, he might have been found before he died!

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Some of you asked about the Easter Cross we had in the yard last year. I have about 1/2 dozen of them - if anyone wants one, please let me know; first come, first served.

DBC

Read the following set of belief statements and 1) think about whether you fundamentally agree or disagree with them, and 2) picture in your mind the church that has published them.

We believe that Jesus is the absolute Son of God and the only way to the Father.

We believe that his sacrifice on the cross is the perfect atonement and only atonement for the sins of mankind.

We believe that to receive this atonement or salvation from the penalty of our personal sins, each person must acknowledge their sins, repent and turn from their sins, and place their entire life in the hands of God through Jesus.

We believe that although we do take part in some basic Christian sacraments (water baptism, communion) these are not in themselves salvation from our sins, but merely physical expressions of an inward experience and relationship with God.

We believe that God's word, the Bible, is inspired directly from God and that although it was written down by men, these men were moved by God's Holy Spirit and with his words.

We believe the word of God, the Bible, is correct and historically accurate and without error.

I might not phrase everything exactly the same, but I don't really find anything to disagree with. When I read these, I could easily picture them coming from Skillman or any number of churches, and could imagine feeling pretty much at home there. They actually come from the Deliverance Bible Church, which was featured in a front page article in the Morning News this morning.

The Deliverance Bible Church is among a small but growing group of churches across the country whose focus is ministry to the "outcast" - the tatooed, pierced, dressed in black, body artists with strange hair and heavy music. The church hosts a weekly Bible study, regular street preaching, periodic 24-hour prayers and a children's church. The members have evangelized to the homeless in Los Angeles and are raising money for clean-water systems in the Sudan.

Frankly, they are people who would probably not feel comfortable at Skillman, and I'm pretty sure I would be uncomfortable at one of their services. I think that may be an indication that I've still got a ways to go in learning to see people through God's eyes.

Legalism or Grace

I've mentioned previously that one of my regular devotional resources is Max Lucado's Grace for the Moment, which is a collection of 365 excerpts from his books in the form of a daily devotional guide. I was getting caught up this week after having been gone, and was particularly struck by the comment on March 20...

All the world religions can be placed in one of two camps: legalism or grace. Humankind does it or God does it. Salvation is a wage based on deeds done or salvation is a gift based on Christ's death.

A legalist believes the supreme force behind salvation is you. If you look right, speak right, and belong to the right segment of the right group, you will be saved. The brunt of the responsibility doesn't lie within God; it lies within you.

The result? The outside sparkles. The talk is good and the step is true. But look closely. Listen carefully. Something is missing. What is it? Joy. What's there? Fear. (That you won't do enough) Arrogance. (That you have done enough) Failure. (That you have made a mistake)...

It Was NOT A Traveling Violation

Like most sports fans, there are certain announcers I like, some I tolerate, and some I turn the volume way down on. The guys doing the tournament generally rate higher than tolerable for me, although they do get quite a few things wrong over the course of several games.

The finish of the Georgetown - Vanderbilt game this evening produced one of those announcer moments that just irritate me - getting the rules wrong and then criticizing the officials who applied the rule correctly. I can tolerate the questioning of the officials' judgement, although rarely do I see a replay where even judgement calls look bad. But it is inexcusable for announcers on site or in studio to not know the rule, and then question "how could they make/miss that call?"

The specific play was the game winning shot by Georgetown. The player received the ball, pivoted a couple of times without ever lifting/moving the pivot foot, stepped through 2 players while lifting his pivot foot, released the ball for the shot, and returned his pivot foot to the floor.

Both of the studio announcers went off on the officials for not calling a travel on the play, showing the replay repeatedly, which clearly showed that he did lift his pivot foot and then released the shot prior to returning to the floor, and stating that lifting his pivot foot before the shot should have been called a travel.

Dudes! That is NOT a travelling violation. If you couldn't lift your pivot foot before releasing the ball on the shot you could never shoot a jump shot, a layup, a dunk - you would always have to have at least one foot on the floor when shooting or passing the ball! In fairness, I must point out that the rules state that it is a traveling violation to lift the pivot foot prior to starting a dribble, or to lift the pivot foot and return it to the floor without releasing the ball for a shot or a pass. But these guys were embarrassingly wrong tonight.

Thus endeth the rant.

I'm Back...

Barbara is at a Nurse Practitioners conference in Orlando. We left last Friday morning to spend a few days at the beach before her conference started, and did not have internet access. Her conference started yesterday, and I came home Tuesday night.

The bad part about being gone is that work doesn't stop while you are away, it just piles up. Yesterday I left the house at 6:15 am and didn't get home until after 9:30 pm and was too tired to blog. So, it has been a week since my last post...

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Going into the Sweet 16, all of my Final 4 and Elite 8 teams were still playing. So far tonight, I am 0 for 2, and as I write, Ohio State is getting blown out....WVU however, is rolling through the NIT...

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We had an early morning flight last Friday from DFW to Orlando - at least it was scheduled for early in the morning. We left the house at 5 am to get to the airport in plenty of time for our 6:30 flight, which ended up being delayed for over 3 hours. Our plan had been to get to the beach in Bradenton a little after noon, but it was not to be.

We finally got to Orlinedo at about 12:45 pm and stepped off the plane into what looked like a refugee camp. There were so many people waiting at the gate, sitting on the floor or wherever they could find a space, that they had to clear a lane for us to walk through.

It was probably a combination of our delayed flight and the fact that we were arriving on the weekend of Spring Break at one of the world's biggest tourist destinations, but it took another 2 hours to get our luggage, get our rental car, and get on the road towards the beach. At least I hoped we could find the road towards the beach - the car rental place was out of maps.

We eventually found our way, via a busy toll road - again long lines to pay for the privelege of driving on the highway that led towards our destination - to Interstate 4. It just happens that Disney World and Universal Studios both have multiple exits from I4 and we had the opportunity to spend more time with a few hundred of our newest 'friends' as they lined up to get into the resorts.

Eventually, we got past the resorts and headed down the road, and finally got to Bradenton a little before 6. Bradenton Beach is on Anna Maria Island, on the Gulf Coast, and is not a big Spring Break destination. It was a really relaxing long weekend and a great place for a belated anniversary celebration.

Central Dallas Ministries Tour

Central Dallas Ministries began as a modest food pantry nearly 20 years ago. During that time CDM has developed into a multi-faceted agency as it recognized needs and organized to serve the community. Monday, several Skillman members joined a few folks from a couple of other churches for a tour of their programs, followed by discussion over lunch.

Our tour began with the Emergency Food and Resource Center, which has grown into the single largest distributor of food to the poor in Dallas County. They distribute over 20,000 lbs. of food each week, and are staffed mainly be volunteers who are or have been clients. In 2006 they served 48,000 visitors - mostly poor working people whose circumstances created a temporary need for assistance to get through the month. The resource center also is a referral center, helping people access other resources to address their needs or improve their situation.

Next we visited the Legal Action Works (L.A.W.) Center, which has served over 1,800 low-income people since opening in 1999 and closed over 1,200 cases. L.A.W. has four full time attorneys and three legal assistants representing Dallas County residents who cannot afford traditional legal services. L.A.W. charges based on one's ability to pay and does not charge those making less than 150% of the Federal Poverty Level. Using that standard, about 80% of L.A.W.'s work is performed free of charge.

The next stop on our tour was Community Health Services, which includes primary care medical services, dental services, a Class D pharmacy, and community-based care coordination, through the strength of collaborative partnerships with Baylor Health Care System, Inc., Texas Tech School of Pharmacy, Parkland Health and Hospital System, the Dallas County Medical Society and several other community organizations, churches, and non-profits.

Other programs include Diabetes Education; WorkPaths(Employment Training); Nurture, Knowledge and Nutrition(summer lunch program); Children's Education and After School Care; TRAC Foster Care Transition Services; Ransom Technology Learning Center; Community Life Center at Roseland Homes; The Institute for Faith Health Research; Project Access; and the Urban Engagement Book Club. All of these developed in response to specific needs within the community.

Central Dallas Ministries does a marvelous job of ministering to people where they are and where they hurt, but even more impressive to me is the way that they engage the people they serve and foster partnerships with them to serve others. True grass roots evangelism - not geared to getting people in pews, but to transforming lives.

I was recently in a discussion where the statement was made that Central Dallas Ministries does not resemble our fellowship much anymore. Although I understood the comment to be critical of CDM, I think that instead it is an indictment of our fellowship. Perhaps if we were less concerned with preserving church as we know it - holding fast to the harbor during the storm - we would have more of an impact in the world around us.

March Madness

I haven't gotten too excited this year about the tournament; when WVU was left out, a bit of my interest left also. And this is the first year that Taylor is not around to share the experience with. But, this morning at 11:15 - 15 minutes prior to tipoff of the first game - I filled out my bracket with no real conscious consideration of records, conferences, coaches, or other factors. For what it's worth, here is my final four:

Southern Illinois, Ohio State, Georgetown, and Florida, with Florida repeating over Ohio State in the finals.

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Happy birthday, Mom. I love you.

Ben Stein's Last Column

George Dishman sent this to me, and I thought it was worth passing on...

Ben Stein's Last Column...For many years Ben Stein has written a biweekly column called "Monday Night At Morton's." (Morton's is a famous chain of Steakhouses known to be frequented by movie stars and famous people from around the globe.) Now, Ben is terminating the column to move on to other things in his life. Reading his final column is worth a few minutes of your time. Ben Stein's Last Column... ============================================
How Can Someone Who Lives in Insane Luxury Be a Star in Today's World?

As I begin to write this, I "slug" it, as we writers say, which means I put a heading on top of the document to identify it. This heading is "eonlineFINAL," and it gives me a shiver to write it. I have been doing this column for so long that I cannot even recall when I started. I loved writing this column so much for so long I came to believe it would never end..

It worked well for a long time, but gradually, my changing as a person and the world's change have overtaken it. On a small scale, Morton's, while better than ever, no longer attracts as many stars as it used to. It still brings in the rich people in droves and definitely some stars. I saw Samuel L. Jackson there a few days ago, and we had a nice visit, and right before that, I saw and had a splendid talk with Warren Beatty in an elevator, in which we agreed that Splendor in the Grass was a super movie. But Morton's is not the star galaxy it once was, though it probably will be again.

Beyond that, a bigger change has happened. I no longer think Hollywood stars are terribly important. They are uniformly pleasant, friendly people, and they treat me better than I deserve to be treated. But a man or woman who makes a huge wage for memorizing lines and reciting them in front of a camera is no longer my idea of a shining star we should all look up to.

How can a man or woman who makes an eight-figure wage and lives in insane luxury really be a star in today's world, if by a "star" we mean someone bright and powerful and attractive as a role model? Real stars are not riding around in the backs of limousines or in Porsches or getting trained in yoga or Pilates and eating only raw fruit while they have Vietnamese girls do their nails.

They can be interesting, nice people, but they are not heroes to me any longer. A real star is the soldier of the 4th Infantry Division who poked his head into a hole on a farm near Tikrit , Iraq . He could have been met by a bomb or a hail of AK-47 bullets. Instead, he faced an abject Saddam Hussein and the gratitude of all of the decent people of the world.

A real star is the U.S. soldier who was sent to disarm a bomb next to a road north of Baghdad. He approached it, and the bomb went off and killed him.

A real star, the kind who haunts my memory night and day, is the U.S. soldier in Baghdad who saw a little girl playing with a piece of unexploded ordnance on a street near where he was guarding a station. He pushed her aside and threw himself on it just as it exploded. He left a family desolate in California and a little girl alive in Baghdad.

The stars who deserve media attention are not the ones who have lavish weddings on TV but the ones who patrol the streets of Mosul even after two of their buddies were murdered and their bodies battered and stripped for the sin of trying to protect Iraqis from terrorists.

We put couples with incomes of $100 million a year on the covers of our magazines. The noncoms and officers who barely scrape by on military pay but stand on guard in Afghanistan and Iraq and on ships and in submarines and near the Arctic Circle are anonymous as they live and die.

I am no longer comfortable being a part of the system that has such poor values, and I do not want to perpetuate those values by pretending that who is eating at Morton's is a big subject.

There are plenty of other stars in the American firmament...the policemen and women who go off on patrol in South Central and have no idea if they will return alive; the orderlies and paramedics who bring in people who have been in terrible accidents and prepare them for surgery; the teachers and nurses who throw their whole spirits into caring for autistic children; the kind men and women who work in hospices and in cancer wards.

Think of each and every fireman who was running up the stairs at the World Trade Center as the towers began to collapse. Now you have my idea of a real hero.

I came to realize that life lived to help others is the only one that matters. This is my highest and best use as a human. I can put it another way. Years ago, I realized I could never be as great an actor as Olivier or as good a comic as Steve Martin...or Martin Mull or Fred Willard--or as good an economist as Samuelson or Friedman or as good a writer as Fitzgerald. Or even remotely close to any of them.

But I could be a devoted father to my son, husband to my wife and, above all, a good son to the parents who had done so much for me. This came to be my main task in life. I did it moderately well with my son, pretty well with my wife and well indeed with my parents (with my sister's help). I cared for and paid attention to them in their declining years. I stayed with my father as he got sick, went into extremis and then into a coma and then entered immortality with my sister and me reading him the Psalms.

This was the only point at which my life touched the lives of the soldiers in Iraq or the firefighters in New York . I came to realize that life lived to help others is the only one that matters and that it is my duty, in return for the lavish life God has devolved upon me, to help others He has placed in my path. This is my highest and best use as a human.

Faith is not believing that God can. It is knowing that God will. By Ben Stein

From Please, God to Please God

There are still a number of phrases incubating in my head from the Zoe Conference. One of these concerns the need to transform my prayers from please, God to please God. With the comma, I am constantly asking for something - please, God, help me with this; please, God, give me that; please, God, please, please, please...Without the comma I am expressing my desire to live according to God's will, not my own. Augustine put it like this - love God, live as you please; meaning that if you truly love God, reflecting that love will be the way you want to live.

Another phrase that resonated with me is that the church is not the dispenser of God. We don't take God out into the world - He is already there. Our job is to go out and join him.

Neither is it our mission to get people to come to church. Our mission is to go and lift up Jesus. "And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men to myself."

Every Christian has a ministry to the body and a mission to the world. Baptism is our ordination to ministry and our commission as missionary.

What's Right With This Picture?

Larry James' post today is disturbing, no matter what one's thoughts are regarding immigration in the U.S. today. I don't pretend to have the answers to all the questions arising from the various issues related to immigration, but I do recognize injustice when it occurs.

It Is Well - Blessed Be Your Name

Not too long ago, Nathan asked me to give him a list of my favorite songs to work into the worship orders at Skillman. That got me to thinking about how many different songs might be the favorites of different people, and why they might be among their favorites. One result of those thoughts is that we are putting together a bulletin board - Songs of Skillman - where members can post an index card listing 3 - 5 of their favorite songs on one side and the story or reason why they selected what they did on the other. Feel free to post a comment with your own favorites.

I have so many songs that narrowing down to a top 3, top 5, or even a top 10 list would be extremely difficult, and the list would probably change from week to week, but 2 songs would almost assuredly be on my list. While from different eras and somewhat different in musical style, they are very similar in the stories behind them and the thought they express.
Note the parallels in the beginning verse of each...

Blessed be your name in a land that is plentiful,
Where your streams in abundance flow, blessed be your name.
Blessed be your name when I'm found in the desert place,
Though I walk through the wilderness, blessed be your name.

When peace like a river attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll,
Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well with my soul.

The music to Blessed Be Your Name is very much contemporary, written in 2002; the text and the story prompting it is ancient, coming from Job. Hear these words from the chorus...

You give and take away.
My heart will choose to say,
"Lord, Blessed be your name."

The story behind It Is Well with My Soul, written in the latter part of the 19th century is very similar to that of Job. H. G. Spafford was a wealthy, successful Chicago businessman who lost his home and his business in the great Chicago fire. A few weeks later, his four children died when the ship on which they were crossing the Atlantic sank. Sometime later, he was on a ship to join his wife, who had survived the sinking of the ship that took his children, and as he passed near the spot where the ship had sunk, he penned the words that so many have come to love.

It Is Well With My Soul - Blessed Be the Name of the Lord.

Body Worlds

Yesterday afternoon as Taylor's spring break drew to a close and mine began, we went to see the Body Worlds exhibit at Fair Park. Body Worlds is a touring exhibit of the human body and its various internal systems. It is incredible.

The exhibit consists of several bodies that were donated to science and underwent a process to plasticize the systems that are the focus of each gallery. There were galleries focused on the body's structure - bones, joints, muscles, ligaments, cartilege, etc.; on the circulatory system - the heart, the arteries and blood vessels; the digestive and respiratory systems, the reproductive system, and the brain and nervous system.

I'm not close to doing the exhibit justice with this description, but it vividly reinforces that the human body is an incredibly complex and amazing design. It will be in Dallas through May and is well worth the time and cost to see it.

Navigating the Perfect Storm

Leonard Sweet described the perfect storm facing churches today - the Tsunami of Postmodernity, the Hurricane of Post Christendom, and the Global Warming of Post Scale. He gave five principles for steering through the perfect storm.

1. Lift anchor and launch into the deep. While it seems counterintuitive, in a storm, the most dangerous place for a boat is to be tied to the dock.

2. Steer into the storm. Again, counterintuitive - the natural inclination is to try to outflank or outrun the storm. An example he gave was a comparison of a herd of cattle and a herd of buffalo. When a storm approaches a herd of buffalo will gather tightly together and face directly into the storm, where a herd of cattle will bolt and scatter. Much more damage is done to the cattle than to the buffalo.

3. Get rid of excess cargo. A timeless adage among sailors - remember Jonah? To survive a perfect storm we will not be able to carry excess baggage. In the following breakout session John York wondered if at times we haven't redefined the baggage as the boat. Clinging to the baggage is not the way to face a storm.

4. Lash ourselves to the mast. The mast represents the Master - we can survive any storm if we are lashed tightly to the master and let go of everything else.

5. Enjoy the ride.

An Overview of Child Well-being in Rich Countries

I interrupt the series of postings on the Zoe Conference to return briefly to the topics of poor children, schools, and testing. Actually, it is not really an interruption so much as an expansion. Jesus' interest in the well-being of children in this world cannot be compartmentalized as 'separate and apart from' the gospel.

Joshua Benton had a column last week in the Dallas Morning News that ties some of my recent thoughts together...

As I type these words, I have an excruciating toothache. And it's made me realize that we blame schools too much for our children's problems.

(Keep reading. That'll make sense eventually.)

Earlier this month, a research arm of UNICEF issued a report dryly titled, "An Overview of Child Well-being in Rich Countries." Its goal was to measure how children in 21 well-off nations – mostly the U.S., plus much of Europe – compared with one another. It took dozens of measures from each of the countries and compiled them into a series of ratings.

The results were pretty miserable for fans of the Stars and Stripes.
Overall, children in the United States finished 20th, beating out only Great Britain. Gather the torches and pitchforks, right? That sort of pathetic showing surely must be the fault of lazy teachers, incompetent principals and administration bureaucrats!
Not quite. Actually, in the one UNICEF rating that schools have some impact on – what the study calls "educational well-being" – America does OK. Not great, mind you, but our 12th-place showing in schooling was easily the best we did in any category.

Our test scores are below average, and we have more dropouts than we should. But according to UNICEF, our schools are earning a solid C-minus. It's the rest of society that's dragging down our grade point average.

How about "material well-being," a measure the richest country in human history should fare well in? We finished 17th. We have more of our kids living in poverty than any other rich country. We're near the bottom in how many books our kids have in their homes.

How about "health and safety"? We all care about protecting our kids, right? Then why do we have the second highest rate of infant mortality in the study, barely edging out Hungary? Why are we second from the bottom in the percentage of our kids who die from accidents or violence? Why does UNICEF rate us dead last out of 21 nations overall?

Maybe you think we'll do better in "family and peer relationships." Sorry – try 20th place. We have more of our kids living in single-parent homes than anywhere else. We're near the bottom in how often kids eat dinner with their parents and in how many of our kids rate their friends as "kind and helpful."

The final category the United States was rated in was "behaviors and risks." (Or, as those Euro-loving UNICEF types spell it, "behaviours.") Again, we finished second to last. Our kids lead the most unhealthy lifestyles, eating more and junkier food. They also smoke more pot and, by far, have the most babies of their own.

I'm sure there are ways to quibble with UNICEF's numbers. (And I'm sure the tinfoil-hat-wearing portion of our readership won't believe anything that comes from the U.N.) But the story line is clear: Our kids are in trouble, and for reasons that have nothing to do with schools and teachers and superintendents. By the time a kid turns 18, she's only spent about one-eighth of her life on a school campus. The rest of the time, she's at home, at the mall, with her friends – places a teacher can't easily reach.

As the Texas Legislature meets in Austin, they're considering a number of changes to the state's school rating system. The assumption behind some of the proposals is that schools need more pressure to perform well. Set higher standards on the TAKS test, the argument goes, and schools will find a way to meet them.

The testing and ratings systems of the past decade have led to student gains and helped in some ways. But I wonder if we're hitting the ceiling for how much good more pressure can do. There have been any number of studies showing that between 70 and 80 percent of a school's academic performance is based solely on the socioeconomic background of its students – whether it's handed poor kids, middle-class kids, or rich kids.

Let's say the quality of a child's parenting takes up another 10 or 15 percent. That doesn't leave much space for schools to maneuver in.

So what does all this have to do with my tooth? (My left maxillary second molar, if you must know.) Because of a poorly done root canal six years ago – finally come home to roost – I've spent much of the last week in various states of agony, shuffling
back and forth to the dentist's office. I tried to work on a few stories I'm writing, but the persistent firebombing in my mouth kept distracting me. Then I remembered reading a study a couple of years ago that found access to dental care was a small but significant factor in how kids did in school. If a family can't afford regular trips to the dentist, there's a good chance their kid will have toothaches. A federal study found that poor children are three times more likely to have an untreated cavity than middle-class children. And a kid with a toothache is going to have more trouble concentrating in class than his pain-free neighbor.

Would universal dental care boost our test scores? Maybe a little, but that's not the point. The point is that there's not that much teachers can do, on any sort of scale, about their students' teeth – or any of the other factors that keep kids from being teen Einsteins.

Blaming schools for problems beyond their control doesn't help. And putting more pressure on schools to solve them won't, either.

The Perfect Storm

At the Zoe Leadership Conference Leonard Sweet described what he called a perfect storm facing churches in today's world. A perfect storm occurs with the confluence of two or more major storms. Sweet described the Tsunami of Postmodernity, the Hurricane of Post Christendom, and the Global Warming of Post Scale. Each of these has the potential to significantly impact today's church; together some effect is inevitable.

The postmodern world values community, authenticity, and experience; it is a digital, connected, electronic world; it is a world that views truth as relative.

The post Christendom is one where the traditional view/role of the church in the community is no longer the common view/role. The church is no longer at the center of a community, but has moved to the margins of society.

The post scale world is one that has reached a tipping point, where the next incremental step results in disproportionate change far greater than the previous increments. One example Sweet used was the development of hunting tools: the bow and arrow was an improvement over the club; the gun an improvement over the bow and arrow; they each make hunting incrementally easier and more efficient. The bomb however, destroys the food.

We can recognize and prepare for the approaching storm or we can maintain status quo as though it doesn't exist; either way, the storm is approaching.

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27 years ago today, at the Downtown church in Searcy, Dr. Kenneth Davis, Jr. (Uncle Bud for any readers with Harding connections) performed the wedding ceremony that united me with the love of my life. This evening we celebrated by having our kids join us in watching the Mavericks win their 16th straight. Taylor is home for Spring Break this week, and Lauren took a short break from studying, riding the train from Ft. Worth to meet us at the American Airlines Center. How pleasant to be able to share important occasions and simple good times with your kids.

Lest you be concerned that going to a basketball game is not exactly the most romantic of anniversary celebrations, I can share with you that Barbara and I do have a long weekend trip planned overlapping our spring breaks. And the day also included 27 roses. But I can also share with you that just doing the smaller things together is a large part of the joy and depth of a mutually satisfying marriage relationship.

Looking back over these 27 years I am amazed at how I have been blessed by life with Barbara; I can hardly wait to see what the next 27 bring.