Friends

Last Sunday, Cindy and I began a week of meetings at the Baptist World Alliance. We have been invited to attend so many times, but this was our first time to attend. Representatives gatherers from over 80 countries for worship, business, teaching, and conversation. We attended worship sessions, business sessions, and break-out sessions. We listed as each of the global regions (Australia/Pacific, Asia, Europe, South America, Africa, Caribbean, and North America) gave reports of God’s work in their country over the last year. Over the last ten years, the BWA has grown by 29%. The testimonies were thrilling to hear. Unfortunately, North America has decided by 5%. On the other hand, Africa has grown by 102%.

I was invited to share on Wednesday about the Global Goals of Finishing the Task (A Bible for Everyone, A personal evangelical witness to everyone, a group of believers near everyone, and prayer by name for everyone). As I have begun to speak about these goals in our church, others at the conference were also captured by the 2033 goals.

One of those people was Pastor Filip (on the left). He pastors the oldest Baptist church in Croatia. They are celebrating their 150th anniversary this year. After my talk, he reached out to Elijah (above on the right) the president of the Baptist World Alliance. He asked for my contact info and we were able to connect on Thursday.

He said listening to the goals he immediately was captivated by the ideas. He believed that if he could get his church to see these big goals it would help them to reenergize. He thought that as they shifted their attention to participating in God’s big mission it would help them to more fully engage in God’s local mission for them. He said that they did not have a large church, but that they wanted to be directly involved in Bible translation. He told me the story of his church, that a Bible salesman came to the area and sold Bibles and shared Christ with people. His church was birthed out of the Bible. He wants to do that again with others.

Filip and I started a conversation. Over the next few months, I’ll be working with our partners to help build an onboarding process for churches that want to be hands-on in missions. We hope to launch a process within a few months that can help churches start tackling the 1600 remaining languages that need the Bible translated into their own language.

I covet your prayers as I take on these new volunteer responsibilities. I pray that our church will also catch the global missionary vision that will fuel us to reach Athens for Christ. Please earnestly seek God’s guidance for our church as we try to answer these same four questions 1) How do we get the Bible closer to people’s hearts around us? 2) How do we train people and equip them so that every person in our area hears a Christian bear witness to the saving faith of Jesus? 3) Where are pockets of people who have not heard the Gospel and how do we help them to find a Christian community? 4) How can we develop and deploy a plan to pray by name for every person in our area, so that they receive Christ as Lord and Savior?

The great commission is calling us to deeper discipleship and greater effort on behalf of our Savior.

P.S. About a year ago we planned a backpacking trip to hike to the highpoint of Utah. We bought Arline tickets and made reservations. The meeting in Amsterdam and Norway got wedge into our already complicated schedule. I appreciate y’all’s support. We will be coming back from theses meetings and heading straight into the mountains. I’ll be back in the pulpit on July 16. I’m praying for y’all in my absence. Please pray for us.

Everyone

On Tuesday, June 20 near the 40-year anniversary of a global evangelism meeting that Billy Graham called in 1983, another evangelism meeting kicked off in Amsterdam. Some of the people at the meeting had been in the earlier meeting. This meeting was called “Everyone.” It focused on the 2033 goals of reaching every person on earth with the Gospel by the 2000th anniversary of the resurrection of Jesus and the founding of the church.

People gathered from over 130 different countries, speaking multiple languages, but all unified by faith in Jesus Christ. Multiple preachers, teachers, and bands led worship. They were from all over the world. Each day, after morning worship, 10 conference participants gathered at 100’s of round tables. For 90 minutes tables talked about what they had heard in the general session and what God was telling them. It was a huge focus group trying to strategize on how the church together can accomplish the massive goal. How do these goals impact local churches and the global movement?

We sat at a table with people from Ghana, India, Denmark, and the US. Everyone is still hurting from the divisiveness of the last couple of years. It was interesting how so many people had nearly the same experience of division, accusation, and abandonment. There is lots of global pain. In the midst of that are so many Christian leaders struggling to get their churches to grow in evangelism, church planting, and Bible translation. It is easy to think of just our church, but the global need of several billion people who have never heard the Gospel keeps calling to God’s children.

We met with the Finishing the Task team which is trying to stand in the middle of this task and coordinate with over 1600 different organizations who are focusing on the 2033 goals. We listened and prayed and had a chance to serve the conference. I'm writing this after Thursday night and the conference still has two days to go.

One thing I can say, as I contrast this meeting with the Baptist meeting that happened last week in New Orlean where Rick Warren’s church was expelled from the Southern Baptist Convention, is that this meeting in Amsterdam is trying to figure out how to get more people witnessing. More people preaching. How to get young and old, men and women sharing Christ. It was a stunning contrast. Each day the conference begun with a simple phrase, to reach everyone we need everyone.

I was asked by several people before I left about the SBC and its rejection of Rick Warren. I think it was a huge mistake. I think it was a misreading of Scripture. I think it was mean-spirited and lifted up doctrinal uniformity over grace. I think it abandoned the Baptist principles of the priesthood of the believer and the autonomy of the local church. I think the group has rejected what it means to be a Baptist and substituted the structures of hierarchical churches. I don’t think it will end well. I think they will continue to draw a more and more narrow circle and the SBC will continue to shrink. I believe God has already significantly lifted his hand of blessing on the organization.

I’m proud of our church and all our ministers. We are no longer welcome in the SBC. I believe that we are upholding the Baptist ideals. I believe we hold to the vision of Pentecost, “In the last days, God says, ‘I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy’” (Acts 2:17-18). I believe that God wants to use every person in our church to share the Gospel. I think the next ten years could be the best ten years of our church as we release everyone into the mission of Jesus. Please keep praying for us as we head from this meeting to the Baptist World Alliance and see how Baptists might help accomplish the 2033 goals with our arms linked to our brothers and sisters in Christ around the world.

A Rare Treat

Last week, a Texas woman saw a small furry creature by the side of the road. She thought it must have been someone’s pet lemur that had escaped. You know, those funny talking fur balls from Madagascar? It was by the side of the road in San Antonio. It must have been stunned. She got a towel, wrapped it up, and put it in the backseat of her car.

Not long after, the animal roused from its sleep. It was not happy! It was very agitated. The woman had to exit her vehicle. She called for help and, eventually, the animal control people extracted it from the car. They took to the Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation Center where it is currently being treated for its injuries. The good Samaritan was shaken, but unharmed.

The captured critter was a ringtail and not a lemur. They are nocturnal cousins of raccoons. Their back paws look like feline feet and that is why they are sometimes confused with cats. Though they exist all over Texas, they are shy and rarely seen. The officers involved called the encounter, “a rare treat.”

I have only seen a ringtail in the wild one time. I was a little kid. My cousins had a lake house at Possum Kingdom and something electrical had stopped working out on the back porch. The dads were trying to get the power back on. The kids were roughhousing on the stairs. The dads took off a wooden panel to get to some wiring underneath and this "ring-tailed cat” (that’s what my Grandmother called it) shot out from inside. Unfortunately, it was surrounded. Kids on one side, Dads on one side, the house on one side, and the edge of the deck on the other side. It froze for just an instant as it tried to calculate a successful escape route.

I remember its frozen face, body taught with fear. I can see all the faces of my family. Wrestling cousins all stopped and stared. Moms and Dads fell silent and examined the visitor. Then silently, it slid through the crowd and back into the woods.

It's hard to imagine the world that we do not see, but it is there. People who live near us, but we have never talked to or met. Individuals who are struggling just down the street from us, but we don’t know. The unseen world is just around the corner. If we look closely, if we try every so often to slow down, to open up, and to seek, we might find a new friend, a person to help. It can be a “rare treat.”

Pet Peeve

I regularly walk in the Cain Center. I see trash everywhere. There are trash cans everywhere. The refuse is not in the cans but tossed randomly on the ground. It drives me crazy. Ever since I was a little kid, I have had a thing against trash.

I was in second grade in 1970 when the Boy Scouts launched S.O.A.R. (Save Our American Resources). My Cub Scout group was part of the first Earth Day Celebration. We each had a trash bag. We also made trash sticks. We drove a nail into the end of a broom handle and then sharpened the point. Then we walked the shoulders of the roads and speared trash like we were gigging frogs. We filled bag after bag after bag. By the end of that day, I was a committed anti-liter person. Year after year, we took out empty bags and brought them back filled with the stuff people were too lazy or too selfish to dispose of properly.

While in Baylor, the only big argument my pledge class got into during our six weeks and two days of non-stop activity was about picking up trash. I was on team, “Get it All,” while others were on team, “Get Most of It and Move On.” We argued until the wee hours of the morning while we were on our hands and knees picking up float paper (the remains of the homecoming parade). We all remember the argument 42 years later.

Once on the way to work, I saw someone roll down their window and toss trash onto the street. We were at the traffic light by Daylight Doughnuts. I put my car in park and got out. I picked up the trash. I knocked on their window and said, “You dropped this.” I tossed it back into their car.

Last Saturday, I was walking my dogs and saw this dirty diaper in the parking lot. I get that the baby needed to be changed. A dirty diaper is gross, but they were obviously in a car. They could have taken it with them and tossed it in the trash at home. In the background is a massive blue dumpster that loves to eat garbage. 412ft( I measured it) from this spot is a car accessible trash can. In the middle of the Cain Center circle drop-off spot is a perfect place to drop trash into a recepticale by simply rolling down the window extending an arm and then allowing gravity to pull the debris into the black hole. 

Out sin is like trash. We don’t like dealing with it. We ignore it. We try to cover it up. We blame it on others or leave it for others to deal with. The crucial breakthrough in life is realizing that God has a plan to deal with our trash. It always starts when we admit that it is ours. It always ends with us taking it to him. He is willing, able, and ready to take it. He pays the cost. The trash, the sin, kills him on the cross. He deals with it. He cleans the world of it. What we can’t do is just spread it around. What we must do is bring it to Jesus. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us ( I John 1:9-10).

Bang

A few times a year, usually on special occasions, we go to the Cheesecake Factory. It has one of the longest restaurant menus at about 6000 words. It includes over 85 different chicken dishes. At our pace, it would take years for us to eat our way through all the dishes. This long menu is one of their distinguishing factors. They don’t spend much money on advertising because people tend to tell others about the place. Person-to-person excitement passes the word.

I have gone with groups over time and sampled lots of different items. I settled on something I love. It is what I always order. Therefore, I no longer look at the menu. I know that two or three times a year I’m going to get Bang Bang Chicken and Shrimp. Cindy and I share it because it’s huge. We ask them to hold the chives and sometimes that frequently means that they hold the peas as well, which is always confusing to us. It has peanuts, coconut, curry, carrots, zucchini, and wonder. Somehow the flavors all mix in a perfect combination. The plate is always scraped clean by the end of the meal.

The meal almost always ends with one of the 35 different cheesecakes. Again, we no longer need to consult the menu. The answer is always the same, “White chocolate raspberry truffle.”

If you asked me for a recommendation for a place to eat for a special occasion the Cheesecake Factory would be at the top of my list. I know some people only like local quirky places, but I get lots of comfort knowing I can order my special meal at nearly 200 different places and be satisfied at any of them. Over time, I have recommended the place and my meal to lots of people.

This pass-along effect is what draws people. The same idea is what makes churches grow. If you have found something that you love, if you return to it again and again, why not share it with others? Do you love the friends and support you get in Christian community, then recommend it to others? Do you have the peace that only Christ can bring? Then help others know that peace. We can’t afford to eat at CF every day, every week, or even every month. We, however, get to feast at the table of God’s love every day and the table is available to everyone.

On the wall

In 2009, the theme of Graduation Sunday was lions. I tried hard to get a live lion to the service, but I could not make it happen. I was sad and frustrated. I decided the next best thing was to get a real lion that would not mind standing on stage for an hour. I settled on a taxidermy lion.

I finally found some at an auction in Fort Worth. I decided to attend and bid on a lion. I figured I would buy it and then resell it after the weekend. I was never in the running as the cost soared out of my price range. I made a plan B. I waited until the end of the auction and went up to meet the person that had outbid me. I offered to rent the lion for the weekend. I thought it was a great deal. They said, ‘No’ without any hesitation.

Then without skipping a beat, he said. “I will not rent it to you, but I will loan it to you if you help me move these animals to my restaurant in North Fort Worth.” He had bought two lions, a couple of antelope, a grizzly bear, and a polar bear. The next day I rented a moving truck, drove to the auction place, picked up the animals, and moved them to their new home. Then I brought the lions back to Athens. We hid them in the church. The restaurant owner went back on the deal and came to Athens to retrieve the lions. He had not paid attention to the date of our Graduation Sunday. I was able to negotiate to keep the female lion. It was a tense two weeks wondering if the lion would be allowed to be with us. She stayed. The top picture is Logan and I standing in front of her.

The following Monday, I drove the lion back to its home in Fort Worth. I have not seen her for 14 years. Last week on Graduation Adventure, we happened to be near the place. I went in to check on her. It was sad. Once, she stood on an African Savana, an antelope skull beneath her feet and danger in her eyes. Her front left foot carried the whole weight. The impression was that she was running at full speed. She looked powerful and terrifying.

Now, her paws splay awkwardly in mid-air (see the picture). Ugly cables suspend her in an unnatural way. Her eyes stare aimlessly at the ceiling. She even looked a bit embarrassed.

It takes a long time to see how things will turn out. We watch, we wait, we pray. Sometimes we end up on the savana and sometimes on the wall. The future is created by the choices we make today. Pray for our graduates that this will be a good launch. Pray that they will stay close to Christ. Pray that in a few years, they will be thriving and living in the middle of God's plan.

In the dirt

I grew up with a toolbox of matchbox cars. Because I had older brothers I had access to old boy toys. We had lots of plastic track and an accelerator that launched the cars down those orange pathways. We made them jump and fly through the air. We fantasized about having cars like that when we grew up.

My first car was a 1964 Dodge that had once belonged to my grandmother. It was white and boxy on the outside. It had bright red fabric interior and the only cool thing about it was that it had a push-button transmission. It cost me $400. It got me through high school and ready for Baylor.

My second car was bright lemon yellow. It looked so fast sitting in a parking lot. It had a sunroof that I could crank open. It needed the sunroof because the car did not have air conditioning. It's not that it was broken, but the car was made without it. I think that is why I got the car for a good deal. They sold it to me in the spring when I was not thinking about the summer. The interior of the car was black. The temperature in the car was terrible. It got me through college.

My third car was a small silver import whose body was shaped by creased lines in the aluminum body. I think it might have been made of tin foil. The doors rattled. The seats were rough, but the air conditioner worked. It got me through a few years of Seminary. Eventually, I got another car like it, with thicker doors and a quieter ride. Now, I drive a truck.

Only the yellow car reminded me slightly of the cars I played with as a child and that was just because of the color. I have not driven exotic sports cars that can jump across bridge outages. I have not driven a car with an ejector seat or bulletproof windows. I have not street-raced in cars marked with big numbers.

I know when I was a child I thought things were easier for adults. I longed to go where I wanted and to buy what I wanted. Then adulting came along and I realized that responsibility and stewardship required different responses from me. The battle of growing up is to continually put aside self in order to serve others. I looked at this car in the dirt and was so thankful that so many of my childhood dreams did not work out because the life I have is sweeter and richer than I could have ever imagined.

Overnight

At first, I thought it was a golf ball on a tee. I rejected that idea almost immediately. It was a mushroom. It was in the neighbor’s yard. I wanted a picture, but there was no room to park on the right side of the street. The truck took a circuitous route through the neighborhood so I could end up on the opposite side of the road. I stepped out to take a photo. It was low to the ground so I stooped down. I was not low enough. I tried to stretch down even further, but the next thing I knew, I was on the ground. I was sprawled at the edge of the road. About that time a car drove by. I kinda thought that they might stop to check on me. The vehicle ignored me. Maybe they knew me.

From my new vantage point, I reframed the picture. I pushed myself up, getting gravel marks on my hands and knees. It’s not as easy as it used to be. On the way back to my truck I kept saying in my head, “It was not here yesterday.” I drove past this yard yesterday. It was not in the yard. How can something the size of a golf ball grow overnight?

I had plant.id tell me it is a Chlorophyllum molybdites. It’s a bad mushroom. “Chlorophyllum molybdites, which has the common names of false parasol, green-spored Lepiota and vomiter, is a widespread mushroom. Poisonous and producing severe gastrointestinal symptoms of vomiting and diarrhea, it is commonly confused with the shaggy parasol or shaggy mane, and is the most commonly consumed poisonous mushroom in North America.” I was not tempted to eat this mushroom.

Things can turn bad fast. In an instant, in a moment, in a single decision, we can choose the wrong words, the wrong course of action. We can compromise our values. And there for everyone to see is the evidence of our sin. I wake up to the news and the daily headlines pummel me with people’s tragic choices. Overnight, someone else has chosen darkness over light.

Jesus tells us that we have a daily decision to make, “to follow him” (Lk 9:23). We have to choose to say, ‘No’ to ourselves, to our flesh, to our worst instincts. Instead, Jesus leads us to say ‘Yes’ to his ways of goodness, sacrifice, and service to others.

Inevitably we each make a wrong choice. We reject God. We choose our own way. Then God’s plan is set in place. We face the consequences of sin. Our conscience is stirred. Then we have a new choice to make. Will we adjust? If we choose the path of repentance, then God’s amazing love activates. God restores us to himself. Grace is bestowed upon us. We need it every single day. We need the Jesus way of forgiveness, we need the renewal Jesus can bring. We need all the second chances he will give us. If not, our lives would be filled with the rotting reminders of all the poisonous decisions we have made.

Shocking

The ceiling fan broke. The lights worked, but the blades refused to turn. I tried everything I could think to do. I pulled the little chain hanging down. That did not fix the problem. I ignored it. That did not fix the problem. I pulled the little chain hanging down. Same result. After a couple of months,  I decided to face the inevitable.

The new fan sat in the box by the front door waiting for just the right time. The time did not come. I settled on an hour before dinner. I thought to myself, “I can get this done in an hour.” I was wrong.

I started by turning off the electricity at the breaker box. I have a deep and lifelong fear of electricity. I remember working with my dad one day in the front yard. We were planting a tree. As the hole was nearing completion my dad stabbed the shovel into the ground. The next thing we knew he was on his back, the shovel looked like a two-pronged fork and he had cut a main electrical line running in the front yard. It was scary. Nothing in my 55 years since that experience has convinced me otherwise.

Even though I knew the electricity was shut off to the wires, I still treated them like Waterford crystal. I slowly disassembled the fan but had trouble disentangling the wires so that when it came loose it fell on me and the bed below it. Not a good sign. I unboxed the new fan carefully examining each part. The instruction manual was sealed in plastic. It did not stay that way long. Step by step the new fan took shape but each step seemed so hard. I dropped lots of screws. They hid in the folds of the bedspread and seemed to snicker at me. The light always seemed to be in the wrong place. The steps on the ladder were either too low or too high.

Two and half hours later I finished in a sweat-drenched shirt. Then came the moment of truth. Would it work? I called Cindy on her phone and headed to the garage. I wanted to make sure I did not burn the house down if it all went wrong.  I flipped the breaker and word came back to me that the lights came on and the fan blades moved. I hustled back into the room to see for myself. I pressed the buttons on the control unit and it all stopped working. No lights. The fan blades slowed to a stop. I kept punching the buttons. I worried that the wires were fusing in the ceiling. I pushed the buttons more frantically. I noticed that the red light on the controller was staying lit the whole time. I felt more than I saw that one of the buttons was wedged on. I applied a little oppositional pressure and it came free. The red light on the remote control when off and the fan roared back to life.

Fear is what kept me from fixing the light for several months. Fear of the electricity. Fear of the complexity. Fear of failure. In our fear, we give away so much power. Fear of the new. Fear of the other. Fear of change. I walked by the room and saw the light this morning. I was glad for the completion of the job. I felt satisfaction. It gave me confidence. Maybe there is something you have been putting off and God wants to nudge you to do.  Jesus said, “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

What is this plant?

We turned the corner and saw an amazing pink explosion of color. I exclaimed with an awe-inspired breathy, “Wow!”  The tree was twelve feet tall and shaped like a lopsided umbrella. It was erupting in pink blossoms. We rerouted to walk beneath its limbs. The sidewalk was a bride’s dream as the petals filled the walkway with color and joy. Occasionally, a flutter of fuchsia passed our faces as another one descended to carpet the way.

We posed for pictures and to marvel at the sight. It was suggested that it was a cherry tree, but that did not seem right to me, but I was uncertain so it became a cherry tree while we were interacting with it. Our night proceeded as we walked on to dinner, but I kept thinking about that tree. It was beautiful. It was overwhelming.

I had parked by the tree last summer, but at that point, it was just one tree among many trees. It did not stand out or even attract my attention. Last week, however, it dominated the landscape. It was loud and dominated the road. It was incredibly more than I could have ever imagined.

When I got home, I uploaded the picture to https://identify.plantnet.org. In about 3 seconds the website told me the tree was Handroanthus impetiginosus (commonly a Pink Trumpet-Tree). The first word is its Genus, a combination of the name for a Botanist (Handro) and the Latin word for flower (Anthus). The second word, its species, comes from our common word for Impetigo - a skin infection that is pink and yellow. The blooms are shaped like little trumpets and nectar-gathering birds and insects love them. They bloom for 2-3 weeks. I felt blessed to have seen it in full bloom.

Recently I have been using my phone to identify things. I have learned to let it listen to bird calls and tell me what is hiding in the trees. This was my first attempt at plant discovery. I can tell it will not be my last. There is a vast world that we don’t know. We are so limited in what we can master and what we can memorize. It’s amazing that my phone can have access to so much more information.

God has more for us too, more than we could ask or imagine and the Holy Spirit is our access point. Ask the  Spirit to show you the more God has for you.

Seeing

The Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge is one of the lesser-known spots in America. On July 4, 1901, just two months before his assassination, President William McKinley set aside 59,000 acres of untouched prairie and forest just west of the historic Fort Sill. Within 30 days, gold fever launched America's last major gold rush. The official designation of the area as a forest preserve moved the land from Native American control to federal control. The army, previously tasked with keeping settlers off the Native American land, watched as 20,000 people poured into the area. By 1904, the fever broke as the minerals all panned out.

In 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt redesigned the area as a “Game Preserve.” In 1907, the American Bison Society moved 15 Bison from the Bronx Zoo to attempt to save them from extinction. Quanah Parker, the Comanche leader, greeted them when they came off the train. Buffalo had disappeared from the Southern Plains nearly 30 years earlier. The Wildlife Refuge helped save them. It also helped save Elk, Texas Longhorn, and the Black Capped-Vireo (a bird). Intentional, unified effort changed a dire forecast into a cause for celebration.

Last week, with the “Happy Campers” group from our church, we traveled to the Refuge to camp and hike and watch the wildlife. On one of the hikes, we looked to the mountain horizon and saw two huge boulders perched on its edge. I had seen them pictured on a postcard in the Visitors Center’s Gift Shop. The rock formation has a name. Take a moment to look at them and see if you can guess its name. They are named after fruit. Do you see it? On the left is an apple. On the right is a pear. It's called, “Apple & Pear.”

Imagination is the place where discouragement goes to die. It is the place where hope is born. It is the place where, through faith, we believe that God can bring good out of bad. It is the place where resurrection overcomes death. Driving around the Wildlife Refuge it would be easy to see how the place could have been carved up and settled. Instead, some brave leaders thought of a new future. Without effort and imagination, things don’t change, they just continue until they fall apart.

Our church is in a season of discernment and imagination. We are asking ourselves what God wants us to do next? I’m asking our church to pray that we can help influence the 2033 goals of getting the Bible translated into all the remaining languages of the world. It's time that we fulfill that part of the Great Commission. Our Worship Horizons 4C Team is seeking God’s leadership with the help of the Malphrus Consulting Group. Please be praying for God’s holy imagination to sweep through our church. We will be amazed at what God wants to do.

Unbreakable

I was rifling through a stack of giveaway records at Baylor’s Moody Library. It was clear why they were being given away and why the pile was still large. They were a bunch of bad records. I went through the pile twice thinking I might find a gem, but my first instincts were correct. There was no record that needed to be rescued from that pile.

I did notice one label, “Deccalite, unbreakable under normal use.” The first thing I thought was that this would be true of almost any product. Anything that was used normally should be safe. I’ve seen crystal goblets that are 1500 years old.  They are still delicate and beautiful. If all you do is pick up the glass and drink from it, it is in no jeopardy. If, however, it is  grasped roughly and dropped, then no one would be surprised to find a pile of glass instead of a vessel.

I researched the term Deccalite. It was introduced after WW2 by the Decca recording company. it was a special blend of vinyl and was replacing  the older and more brittle shellac. Shellac “is a resin secreted by the female lac bug on trees in the forests of India and Thailand.” It takes lots of work to harvest. After the war it was in short supply. The record companies had to innovate. Unfortunately, the new materials can’t really compete with the old which was, “resilient, resistant to solvents, nonpoisonous, odorless, and biodegradable”  (Berenbaum, Ninety-nine More Maggots, Mites, and Munchers, 27).

We often trade problems. We swap out the new for the old. We select cheaper instead of the more expensive. The last place that color TVs were produced in America was here in Athens. The motto was "most expensive television set in America, and darn well worth it.” Unfortunately, America did not agree. The plant was closed, the jobs outsourced and eventually, the company shuttered. Our yearning for cheaper is one of the causes of job loss and hardship. There is a price to be paid.

We need to constantly be asking ourselves if we are willing to pay the right price. There is no low cost way to parent. There is no free pathway to influence.  In a passage where Jesus is telling us to count the cost, he concludes saying, “those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples” (Luke 14:33).

Renewed

I was walking, actually, stumbling upstream. A kayak followed obediently at the end of a rope. The water was flowing too swiftly to paddle, so I was thigh deep in the cold water, attempting to avoid the roots, sticks, and branches. Spider webs tickled my face in irritating regularity. I scrutinized the water for snakes, bugs, and other creepy crawly things. I was in a fast-running channel to the side of the river. A beautiful canopy of trees defined the space. Sunlight streamed through the branches like a hundred shafts of light. They lit up the stream bed.

I was wearing open-toed sandals. I worried I might cut my feet on something metal or sharp hiding below the surface. The water was crystal clear. I scanned it carefully before moving my toes into danger. I was making good progress when I came to a rusting pile of metal. It was an old flat-bottomed boat. It was no longer much of a vessel, just a rusty skeleton that reeked of tetanus. I gave it a wide berth.

Not long after that, I stepped into deeper water. At the bottom of the river, I saw green and gold. I knew instantly from the shape that it was a phone. I braced myself for the cold and then stretched out my fingers toward the bottom, barely keeping my mouth above the surface. It was in bad shape. The screen was delaminated. The case was brittle and crumbling. Algae and moss clung to the carcass. 

I put it in my kayak. "How it had gotten into this river?" I asked myself.  I could see a struggle and an overturned inner tube and the phone fluttering to the bottom. There must have been pictures on the phone. It was supposed to be a LifeProof case. I thought I might be able to recover the photos and find a clue to reunite them with the owner. It would be fun to delight someone in this way.

Eventually, the phone was on shore. It gave up a SIM card like an oyster giving up a pearl. I was never able to recover anything from it. My fantasy crashed on the rocks of that river. I tossed the whole mess into the trash. There was no resurrection.

On Easter morning, the dead, mutilated body of Jesus lay decaying in a tomb. Then in a miraculous moment, it was living and breathing. The wounds were scars and our world shifted. Before that moment, dead people stayed dead. After that moment, all people had a route to eternal life. The timeline was split. We stand on this side of the most momentous event in history, in the shining light of the resurrection.

Comfort

I stepped out of my truck and almost stepped on it. I saw the flash of yellow right before my foot hit the ground. I stretched my step out, which made me stumble a bit. I walked toward the hospital but then reversed my steps and stood looking at the pacifier in the parking lot. I took its picture and then headed inside.

I thought about the child who woke from groggy warmth inspired sleep to find that their mouth was empty. That reality made them sad and lonely, so they began to whimper and cry. Without language, they tried to communicate with sounds and straining, but to no avail. Of course, the backup pacifier was not in the bag, so tension rose in the room as the baby objected.

I thought of the parents who had not noticed the tiny plastic ping as it hit the concrete. They were rushing to get inside the hospital and a bit harried from juggling the baby, life and the situation that awaited in the building. As their baby struggled, they wanted to help. They searched each pocket of the diaper bag, but found nothing to help soothe the child. It was almost too much.

I thought of the patient in the room waiting to see family and love. I wondered how it looked for tension and stress to walk into the room. The lights in the room were dim. The news had been complicated. Now, they sat in the room with tears in their eyes and crying in their ears. It looked like the end.

They remembered the disciples sitting in a darkened room on that long Saturday, so long ago, a room also filled with tears and wrenching sadness. Those disciples recalled some of Jesus’ final words, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you” (John 14:18) and “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you” (John 14:27), and “your grief will turn to joy (John 16:20).

I walked into the hospital remembering we follow the Lord who brings life out of death.

The Perfect Church

We were driving down the road when we I saw the sign. I kept driving. Then I lifted my foot off of the accelerator. The car slowed. I pulled into the parking lot of the New World Electronics and turned around and headed back. I made another u-turn and pulled up next the the sign and took a photograph. Then I headed back down the road.

The sign has been rattling around in my pocket. I googled the name wondering if the church website might explain the moniker, but there was no website. I searched for the phrase “perfect alternative",” but didn’t find anything. I thought about the name.

At first, it appears that the church might be saying that it is the perfect alternative, that if you have been going to another Baptist Church down the road and it has been a disappointment then this is the church for you, its the ‘perfect alternative.” Sometimes people leave church when it is too imperfect for them. Sometimes they swap churches thinking they have found the perfect church. That is what I saw when I first looked at the sign.

Upon reflection, I don’t think that is what they are saying. I think they know that they are not perfect. You can clearly see the fence is broken, not perfect. The columns are splintering, the pain is peeling, and the sign is fading. I can’t imagine that the people in that building think they are better than other people. I bet they know that the church is filled with the broken, the discouraged and the disappointments of the world, because that is who sits in all the pews in all the churches. Only sinners populate churches.

I think the sign refers to Jesus. He was the “perfect alternative.” Jesus was without sin (I Peter 2:22, I John 3:5, Hebrews 4:15, Luke 23:41). He did not earn the punishment of God. He did not betray God. He was beautiful, loving and pure. And then he did the most unlikely amazing thing. He took our place. He became our alternative. Instead of us paying the penalty, Jesus paid for us. From the beginning, the sacrificial system was based on a substitutionary principle. The life of an animal, in exchange for ritual holiness (Romans 3:25-26). When our name was called, when our sin price came due, Jesus stepped up onto the cross into our place (Gal 3:13. 2 Cor. 5:21), he was the perfect alternative.

The church could easily have been called Grace Baptist Church, but this name so much more personal. The word ‘Grace’ has been diminished, we use it for so many things. We are rarely stunned by its majesty or are humbled by its implications. This church wants the people coming in the door to know they are not perfect, far from it, but Jesus is perfect. We should lower our expectations of every finding a perfect church. Instead, we have a perfect Lord who asks us to come follow him and every imperfection that we see in the church is evidence of the necessity of what Jesus did for us. The flaws remind us of what is real and can draw us together in our honest appraisal of each other. We all need the perfect alternative.

Who's welcome?

I vividly remember approaching the door to the burger place. I had a visceral reaction to the clown picture (I have clown issues). I was consumed by the clown. This was not a McDonald’s. This was not a semi-trusted clown, if such a thing exists. It was a strange clown with a mesmerizing green glare. He did not make me want to eat a burger. Instead, he was eyeing me as if I would be next on the menu.
Then my eyes flitted to the right. A beautiful, happy, well-behaved dog looked warmly at my soul. It was ready to please, ready to help, ready to serve. The dog didn’t make be feel uncomfortable, it didn’t make me feel inadequate. The dog made me think I was worthy of love and affection.

Why was the clown in charge? Why was he against dogs? Why would any restaurant welcome those green dead eyes and exclude those black puddles of love? If the roles had been reversed I would have totally understood a sign that read, “No Clowns Please.” That would make some sense.

Last night, I saw the Jesus Revolution movie for a second time. Early in the movie several church characters are reacting in disgust to the “hippies” who are showing up at church. They react to their clothes, their hair, and their bare feet. These church leaders draw a line in the sand asserting that these wayward kids do not belong in the church. It’s as if they have a sign that reads, “No Hippies Please.” It looks grim until one seasoned church leader’s heart seems to change. He melts into the crowd of young people and is embraced by their love. It is a transformative moment that ignites the growth of the church.

God is the God who welcomes us all, even clowns like me.

What is your vote?

I walked up to the bin thinking about where I should put my trash. There were so many choices to make. It appeared that some items fit into two different categories. There is a plastic cup on the left and in the middle. How am I supposed to know which one is the correct one? I locked eyes with my friend sitting on the left. He urged me to choose his pathway. 

His way is almost unknown to me. I don’t have a pile behind my house that we tend and stir and try to break down to create renewed soil. I’m afraid it will stink and draw attention to my wasteful ways. Instead, we put our stuff in bags and watch it disappear down the street in big blue trucks, thinking that some of it will be turned magically back into useful materials. I have had a couple of conversations about how much of our recycling is actually turned into goodness. I’ve read a couple of articles that make me believe that what I have thought is a bit of a fiction.

This green bin, however, hardly ever darkens my thoughts. How could I redeem my own trash? How could I bring good out of bad? How is the way forward a greater emphasis on my own personal responsibility to sit with my trash long enough for God’s processes to redeem it take effect instead and shipping it downstream for others to deal with? 

It’s a bit like the gospel. Many of us cheaply hustle our sin onto the cross of Christ. What Bonhoeffer called cheap grace. 

Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.

Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble; it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him.

Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock.

Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: "ye were bought at a price," and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

Years ago these words gripped me and they still do. As we move through the season of reflecting on the cross, let's not fool ourselves into thinking that our sin does not stink, that our sins are so minor that they barely necessitate the cross, that we can so easily sweep them away into the unknown. Instead, let us take a serious moral inventory and smell the rotting decay of the disobedience within us that required Jesus to die for us on the cross. Use your sin, see your sin long enough that God can actually redeem it in your life. Then you will have a testimony to tell the world of what God has done for you - how grace has been real to you.

Here

He stepped out of the woods. Crossed in front of the car and then stood among some trees before stopping and looking up at me. He is a Red Stag. A male of the Red Deer species, he is not from around here, but clearly he is here. His ancestors hail from Europe, the Caucasus Mountains and into Western Asia. He is larger than our native deer. The species has been introduced to Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Peru, Uruguay, Chile, Argentina the U.S. Once it had a declining population, now they are thriving. I met him at a pastor’s meeting I attended this week. He is beautiful.

I had spent over an hour with the landowner the day before trying to track down the herd of Red Deer on the property to take a photograph. We had driven all over the property, but eventually gave up with no sightings. The next morning, the car was headed home when we turned right into the property instead of left and onto the highway. Within a minute, a large herd (30-40 animals) of Red Deer all lifted their heads and quietly munched on grass and considered the vehicle. That is when I saw this stag. I’m so glad I took the extra time to look.

A demographer for Texas Baptists also came to our meeting and talked about the growth of Texas over the next 7 years. He said the conservative prediction models are that 5.2 million people will move to our state by 2030 (we currently have 30 million people in Texas). It’s a number so large that it is overwhelming. While most will be moving to the already densely packed urban areas, some will be moving to more rural communities, like ours.

We need to start praying now that God will give us a vision for reaching the lost in Athens. We will need to search for them, prepare for them, seek ways to connect with them and train to respond to them. They are coming from all over the country and all over the world. They might not have started here, but they are coming to make it home and they are beautiful. They are loved by God and we must share Christ with them. We could try to keep going as if they are not here, but I think God is asking for us to turn toward them and not away from them. I think its going to start with prayer on our part so that we are prepared for what God is going to do.

Reconnecting

The First Baptist Church in America and the birthplace of Religious Freedom in America

Last Thursday, I spent the day advocating in the Texas Legislature for our core Baptist principles, the freedom of the conscience and the separation of church and state. I did it alongside the legislative director of Pastors for Texas Children (an ecumenical group focused on protecting public education in Texas) and the legislative director of Texas Baptists. I was asked to come and speak to legislators as they are debating the idea of redirecting public tax dollars to private religious schools. Since I helped nurture Athens Christian Academy for over 20 years and have invested time and energy in our local school district, they thought I might be able to add something to the conversation. As I talked with people in Austin, I was convinced that not all of them knew the rich and beautiful history of America in the area of religous freedom. Its one of our great gifts to the world. The intellectual architect was Roger Williams. He wrote and acted 150 years before our Constitution and his thoughts rocked the world.

Williams sought and was granted a charter for Rhode Island in which absolute universal religious freedom was give to all individuals. In the history of the world, it was the first such place that the right to practice or not to practice a religion was guaranteed without any interference from the government. He pursued this with such energy because of the persecution he experienced for his own religious opinions (one of which was being a Baptist, because being a Baptist was illegal in all of the American colonies until Rhode Island was founded). Williams was punished for his beliefs as were people like him through: fines, whippings, and banishments. His banishment happened in the dead of winter and he barely survived. He came ashore at a place he called Providence in recognition that it was only by grace that he made it our alive from the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He also argued convincingly that religious taxation was another form of persecution because he was required to support a religion and worship in which one did not believe.

Baptists help enshrine these ideas in the Constitution through the election of James Madison. He brought the ideas to life in the Bill of Rights. We have been living out these freedoms ever since. Unfortunately, the further we get away from those ideas, the less we remember the historical need for religious freedom and the more we fall back into the same old traps. The people in power tend to persecute the voiceless. The people in power forget that the cornerstone of faith is the freedom of the individual conscience to choose and that external force is powerless to convince the soul. That is why government must be constantly reminded to stay out of the area of faith. It cannot and should not try make people believe.

Williams was an influential and prolific writer and helped teach that Catholics, Native Americans, Muslims, Protestants and Jews could live together in a free society as long as the magistrates were organized solely on civil principles. The charter to Rhode Island called it a “lively experiment.” It had never been tried before. What had been tried was governments and religion becoming so intertwined that Europe had been roiling in religious wars for over 100 years. The graveyards were filled with those who died as a result. Religious freedom was supposed to insulate America from the rage and destruction that often flowed ironically from the love of God. It took years, but eventually all the colonies accepted this position and stopped having established churches. They stopped taxing people to pay for churches. We have done alright without the tax monies. Now our government is toying with the idea of taking your tax dollars and giving them to people of faiths that you do not support, just like the time of Roger Williams. I was there trying to remind them of our history.

The church in America has thrived in large part and in dramatic contrast the the church in Europe due to our position or religious freedom. We don’t need the government to fund, support or even encourage faith. We need the people of faith to live such convincing lives that they are drawn to faith. Let the free market decide. Let our witness be convincing. Let the Holy Spirit convict people’s conscience because nothing else will work.

Climbing Higher

I know it’s a little crazy. People ask me what I’m doing. I try to explain about the Highpoints and then the planking. Mostly I get eye rolls and knowing pats on my forearm. Cindy gets lots of understanding sympathetic noises and words of condolence. A few people, however, smile and cheer us on, but even they shake their heads at me. One of the highpoints that has been vexing me is Britton Hill. It is not a difficult hike, but it is a long way from anywhere. It is the highpoint of Florida, but it is very near the Alabama border. It is not on the way to anywhere. For years, I have been trying to figure out a convenient way to get to that spot, but nothing seemed to work.

A few weeks ago, I decided that I was going to have to make a special trip. Then I figured out I could turn it into an adventure. I decided to ‘kidnap’ Cindy for Valentine’s Day. It has not been our tradition, but Southwest was offering some cheap flights. The cheap flights went to Atlanta and New Orleans. They are both about 250 miles away from Britton Hill. I chose New Orleans because it has beignets (small square doughnuts piled high with powdered sugar). We left at lunch on Tuesday, drove to Love Field, flew to New Orleans, drove to Jackson Square, ate beignets, walk around downtown, drove to Mobile, spent the night, left early, drove for 3 hours, planked Britton Hill, did a short hike, drove to Fort Morgan, visited the Civil War fort, took the ferry to Dauphin Island, drove back to the New Orleans airport, flew to Dallas, and then drove home to Athens. We were gone for 36 hours. It was such a blast!

It took my highpoint count to 42. I have plans to do 2 more this summer which will take me to 44. It will leave me with 6 to go. They are a troublesome bunch. They are in the Northwest (WY, MT, ID, OR, WA, AK). They are very high and hard. Some require ropes and technical gear. They all require great sacrifice. I have a map of them all on the wall at my house. I walk past it everyday and I keep asking myself, “Am I willing to pay the price to reach these places?”I have not yet answered the question. I guess the next few years will be my answer.

Our lives really are our answer to what we believe and what we value. People can watch us and they will know with certainty our highest priorities and our deepest desires. What do people see while watching you?