Things To Do In 2004

Let's see.......about that list of things I wanted to get done in 2004. Too late! Time to start partying for 2005.

As much as I will try to party, 2005 will start off on a somber note for me though. The devastation of the tsunami is just so overwhelming. I pray constantly for those survivors. I am also encouraging people to donate funds. I see Amazon has raised over $7 million so far and it is incredible to keep hitting the refresh button and watch the number climb.

Happy 2005

God and His Will

My denomination just voted on several critical issues. Before the vote many prayed, including me, that God’s will would be done. The vote has been completed now and many are saying that God has spoken. But is that a good thing for us?

It is a good thing because I always want God’s will to be done. It is a good thing because in the end I love God and I do believe that no matter what the circumstances God will work it out to be good for me in the end. It is a bad thing because my understanding of how God works is limited and that might mean the result is not what I really had in mind.

It is interesting how quickly we interpret events as God’s will always as a positive. Theologians have long pondered God’s permissive will but I’m not sure it has ever sunk in. We tend to use every single event that has even the slightest evidence of the miraculous as a testimony to inspire the faithful to even greater faith.

Interestingly, every other religion in the world does the same thing. I read yesterday about a family who got stuck in traffic and were late getting to the beach in one of the Asian countries hit by the tsunami. They were just minutes from being in a location that was wiped out and the writer was praising Allah for his miraculous protection.

Of course I conclude that it was my God that orchestrated those circumstances so that family could be saved for some reason. That temporarily solves my dilemma, but I emphasize the temporary. As I try to make sense of the massive numbers of dead my mind short circuits.

The reality is that I simply do not understand how God works and that leaves me rather ambivalent towards our recently completed vote. If the vote had gone the other way I would have been disappointed but in the end I would have simply packed my bags and moved on to what God had in store for me next. I love being a pastor but I would have been willing to give it up if God wanted me to. My wife and I have been through enough changes in direction, disappointments, vicious attacks, slander and uncertainty to believe that we can still be optimistic about the future no matter where that leads. That’s why even though I am ambivalent about the vote I am optimistic about the future.

Failing to Really Comprehend

As I've read many of the first hand accounts of people who survived the tsunami I find myself heart broken and yet I feel at a loss to really comprehend what they are going through. How incredibly tragic to be at the beach with your family, enjoying time together, and have your life turned upside down in a second. How incredibly hard it must be for those who have lost young children. I just can't imagine what it must be like to see the sheer joy of those kids running around on the beach one minute and then find them dead the next. I also can't imagine what it must be like to see some "survivors" still hanging on to floating objects way out in the water with no way to rescue them, knowing that they probably won't make it. I was shocked to see news footage of a group of people clinging to the side of a building when suddenly three or four of them were sweeped away by the current. It was so horrifying I don't think the news commentators really comprehended what was happening. It is so sad. I don't know how to respond.

I have friends who have gone through incredible tragedies. I didn't know how to respond then either. I think the best thing is to simply be there with them, give them hugs and silently help with things that must be done. It never seems like enough but I think it beats making a fool out of yourself and trying to fix things for them.

One of the most moving experiences I have had was when I was in Africa and a young man drowned in the river in our town. I did a lot of spearfishing so people from the community asked me if I could try to find the body in the river. I can't say that I was very comfortable with that but felt it was the least I could do. I found the body after about 20 minutes of diving and brought it to the surface. There were about 200 people on the river bank who started wailing as is typical in that culture. A boy in a dugout canoe paddled beside me and let me and let me hang on as I slowly made my way to the river bank with the body. Several men from the family came down to the water and took the body from me and carried him up the bank into town. One of them turned to me and with incredible grief in his eyes simply patted me on the back and said thank you. It was an incredible jesture on his part but I could never shake the feeling of how unecessary I thought it was. I felt bad that he felt the need to say it, like I was somehow taking something from him that I didn't need. Like I was receiving something from him when I should be giving him so much more.

Unfortunately the feeling of not knowing what to say or do causes many people to avoid friends and neighbors who are going through tragedies. We would rather pretend it is not really happening. Actually it is times like these that bring understanding to "bear each others burdens."

25 Years Ago

I take "Flying" magazine and got my January 2005 issue last week. I'm not a pilot but my brother is and he talks enough about it to sufficiently fuel a passing infatuation with it. So I get the magazine.

On the last page they do a flashback thing where they give a brief description of what was in the magazine 25 & 50 years ago. The 25 year old issue caught my eye. "Entering the 1980's." Are you kidding me? Was that really 25 years ago? I'm not sure I handle getting old all that well.

The God of the Modern Church

Reggie McNeal writes, "The culture does not want the powerless God of the modern church." And that, "God doesn't have to show up to get done what's being done."

Makes me really think. What goes on at our church that we really need God for? It is really frustrating to get a lot of great things going and thnk we are doing well only to find out God isn't even in the picture. It makes all the progress pretty worthless.

I also hate it when people say the numbers are good so God must approve. I just point out all the other religions of the world that are growing. Sometimes it is hard to find the balance between seeking God and learning from others. I mean I do believe that God can inform me through others but I also pray that I won't be fooled into believing I should go in a specific direction just because everyone else is going that way.

Attention Span

In his book "Playing the Future" Douglass Rushkoff has an interesting take on attention spans. The common complaint is that kid's attention spans are getting shorter and shorter. Rushkoff sees this as a higher form of taking in information. He says that while they may have a shorter attention span they have a broader attention span.

In other words they have the ability to take in information and make sense of it much faster than many adults. They don't need to see a 30 minute TV show in order to understand it. While an adult will take 30 minutes to watch one show to gain underestanding a kid can watch three different shows simultaneously and get what is going on in all three. He also thinks that kids know intuitively when to switch channels from one show to another so that they capture the important parts of each story.

Part of the way they are able to do this is because they understand the use of icons. What they are doing with these TV shows is turning them into the equivalent of 3 frame comic strips. From those 3 or 4 frames they get the story and figure out everything in between. Everyone knows that a light bulb over someone's head in a comic strip means that person has an idea. How they got that idea is something you have to imagine. Rushkoff says that kids look for similar, though much more subtle, icons in tv shows and that helps them fill out the story. To actually have to sit and watch it all is boring.

I'm not sure about this yet but I'm leaning towards agreeing with him. To my mind one of the stupidest things around are Pokemon cards. I simply do not understand them. However, my 10 year old son and 6 year old daughter can spout off for hours about them. No matter how hard I try I simply cannot figure out what they are talking about. Apparently different cards have different powers. But those powers are "neutralized" depending on the numerous combinations of other cards in play. How they know and keep track of it all is totally beyond me. As Wesley the farm boy would say, "A truly dizzying intellect."

Selling Jesus

A lot of folks have complained about the numerous ways the business world has tried to market Jesus. It's enough to make you feel guilty about your WWJD bracelet. It really does get disgusting when it sinks to a level of cheap and gaudy. Think Jesus bobblehead. But I was surprised to find my dear old mom among those targeted for some of these products.

My mom just loves to buy biblical games for my kids. Does Bibleopoly ring a bell? Okay, so she hasn't gotten us that one but to me they are all the same. I hate them. The ones I've tried are usually difficult to understand, force King James bible verses on kids completely out of context and remove all the competitiveness that makes games fun in the first place. (It reminds me of the guy in my kid's Upwards Basketball program who told the kids that this was a Christian league because they didn't allow stealing. Oh Brother.)

My kids now know that I refuse to play those games but my mom keeps buying them. They think it's funny. I have tried to understand the thought process behind these games and for the life of me I can't figure it out. I only guess that the developers of these games are probably not people I would enjoy hanging around with.

So my kids and I will stick to Monopoly, Old Maid, UNO, Phase 10, Skipbo, Scrabble, Connect Four, Life, Dominoes and of course Euchre with real playing cards!

Letting Everyone Be Heard

I am trying to figure out how I could use Open Space Technology in our church. It has been fun thinking about what that might look like. I think it would be a good experience for us and it would be interesting to see what people come up with.

I am continually amazed at how much I underestimate people. People are simply amazing. Every time I do this I remember one of our members who passed away a few years ago. He had a few strokes which made it difficult for him to talk. He always came to church and enjoyed it but I never looked at him as being an evagelistic tool. His speech was hard to understand. But sure enough he convinced his friend to come to church. It is several years later now and his friend still comes every week.

I think OST would let some of these "diamonds" really shine.

Politics Again

I know I said I would only have one post about the election but I couldn't help myself. Besides, this is really not so much about the elections as it is about policies toward the poor.

Even though I have voted Republican for a long time now I get frustrated when I hear well meaning people view the Republican party as the only party a Christian should vote for. The moral vote that we heard about seems to be about the morality of the abortion and homosexual issues. I understand that but it is amazing to me that so many are oblivious to all the other moral issues that the Republican party doesn't seem to care about.

The biggest one is helping the poor. I am enough of a cynic to think that many on both sides use the poor for their own gain and couldn't care less. I always find it interesting when they release the candidates tax returns and we get to see how charitable they are. But I also know that there are people on both sides who do genuinely care about the poor but have different approaches to helping them.

Having been on the Republican side of this issue I have read about Adam Smith and the like. I have studied Cowperthwaite's ideas and his work in Hong Kong. I have seen first hand the effects of giveaway programs both here and in the third world. The principles are sound have withstood the test of time. We have a history of cutting taxes and then having an increase in tax revenue. It is on this information that I have always stayed the course with regards to the best way to help the poor.

Now I'm beginning to wonder if our world is changing so fast that those principles no longer work. How long do we continue to stay the course trusting that in time we will see fruit? When do we say it's not working anymore?

I also wonder about the effect of dealing with the poor on such a large scale has on me. I read about how Cowperthwaite managed to reduce poverty in Hong Kong by such and such a percentage. I think how wonderful it would be if we could do that here. But in the middle of the numbers am I not looking past the poor right under my nose in my own neighborhood?

I'm not usre exactly what the answer is but I do believe that it is an issue that must become part of our regular conversation. Our church needs to have this conversation. Our denomination needs to have this conversation. The Church needs to have this conversation.

Christian Colleges and the Need for Really Being Creative

I coach at a Christian college that charges nearly $100,000 for a bachelors degree, when you include tuition, room and board and other fees. I am told that this is typical and I know that it is only slightly higher than most of the colleges I compete with in recruiting.

Frankly, I think it is disgusting. It is an obscene amount of money and I think it has just about reached it's limit. I know that the money is spent on getting quality professors that keep us competitive. I know that the money is needed to make sure that we have the best equipment to keep us competitive. I know that the money is needed to maintain state of the art facilities to keep us competitive. But it is time to break the vicious cycle.

We need to become an institution that is dedicated to the proposition of really, not kidding around, I'm serious, reducing the cost of a college education. We need to get extremely creative about making it more affordable. It won't be comfortable but it must be done if we are going to keep Christian as an adjective.

My brother made an interesting comment. He said that probably the average dorm room is nicer than the average bedroom of an American teen. The reason is we are recruiting students based on materialism. That means we have to have nice dorm rooms because those students are going to see nice dorm rooms at competing institutions. I think we need to lower costs and start recruiting on virtue, heart and passion.