4 Thoughts on the SCOTUS ruling while sitting in an airport

In light of the SCOTUS ruling today (and a delayed flight), I thought I’d take a minute and jot down a few thoughts, especially for our church family.

First, you’re not surprised, are you?  I’m not.  I’m saddened but not surprised.

Second, if you’re in panic mode, you can relax.  It’s not panic time.  Not even a little bit.  But that’s not because the SCOTUS ruling wasn’t so off-the-wall and myopic.  It’s because yesterday God was in control of the world and everything was held together by Him and today is the same.  Yesterday the Gospel was Good News for broken people who are enslaved to their sin (all kinds!) because Jesus paid for their sin and purchased favor with God on their behalf and He willingly and joyfully forgives and gives new life to those who turn from their sin and to Him – and today is the same.  Yesterday the Church that Jesus purchased by His death and empowers by His Spirit was the light of the world and salt of the earth, and today it’s the same.

Third, watch for more and more religious freedom questions to get answered in light of this ruling.  I think it’ll break against Christian institutions (colleges, universities, hospitals, adoption agencies, etc.) and ultimately against churches.  Why?  Because it appears that SCOTUS has preferred the 14^th amendment over the 1^st.  That will cost us as a nation down the road.  The Constitution speaks of religious freedom but the Bible never does.  And that leads to…

Fourth, it won’t get easier to be a follower of Jesus in this country.  Faithfulness is what is required of us and ease is never promised us. The temptation to compromise or be silent will grow stronger.  So get ready.  But I can also say that there came a time when the persecution came upon a consolidated body of followers of Jesus in Jerusalem, resulting in them scattering to cities, nations, and lands abroad.  That let them live as missionaries and the Gospel spread like wildfire.  It may very well happen again.

It’s a different world we live in today.  But that’s okay.  Jesus is still in charge of it.  He still reigns over everything.

I Wish God would Fix Some Stuff

My wife and I were chatting the other evening after everything had settled down around Chalet du Henderson.  We weren't really chatting.  We were grieving.

There are two instances that we are involved in where people stepped out in faith for the sake of kids and orphan care and it has been hard.  Not like several layers of cardboard hard.  Not cement brick broken by the sensei hard.  Hard like cold-rolled steel, compressed, forged, dense, no-denting-is-possible hard.

Gut-punch hard.

I'm not belittling this for those who have experienced it physically, but something like torture-hard.

Ugh.

And my wife, ever the honest foil to my stoic preacher face, said, "I wish when people stepped out in faith like this, God would just work whatever miracle needs working so that they can raise this kid."

Yes.  I do too.  I wish God would fix some stuff.  I've got a list as a matter of fact.

But He hasn't, at least not yet.  They've prayed and things haven't shaken out like we all asked.  They've believed and the mountain remained.  They've walked forward to find the Red Sea still very much in place.  And wet.  And muddy.

And I was thinking about this as I preached this past Sunday.  I actually wrote it in my notes but left it out of the sermon.  So here's my thought:

When life continues to be hard, eschatology matters.  That's a big word for remembering that we're not at home here among this brokenness, that there is a life to come, and that there is a world coming that will be just, right, and miraculous.  Jesus will return and will set the world right.

Paul told the Thessalonians to "comfort one another with these words."

It seems that most eschatology that gets preached today is the Middle East, charts and graphs, and a few predictions thrown in for good measure.  It's predictive.  For Paul, it's pastoral.  He looks at a hurting people and says, "Read the end of the story.  Find comfort."

May it be for you and me and those we've been grieving with.  Amen.

Report of Death is an Exaggeration

Mark Twain famously wrote in a note:  "Reports of my death are an exaggeration."

That's about right when it comes to the Pew study too.  If you saw any of the news regarding the report, you know that the "Nones" are on the rise and the "Christians" are in significant decline.  Some of the reports stopped short of including a smiley face, but it seemed the glee was there.

But what is actually there in the report?  Consider the following graphic (you can click on it to enlarge it):

What you see displayed is a study from 1972 to 2014 charting the percentage of the population of the U.S. that is considered church-attending.  The green line is evangelical, the red line is Protestant Mainline.  The last time the Mainline congregations had a greater percentage of attendance that evangelical church was 1972.  The line explains itself.

There's no glee.  Either in the demise of the Christianity generally or the precipitous decline of the mainline congregations.  But there is hope.  What I consider nominal and cultural Christianity seems to be shrinking (and no, I'm not saying all those Mainline churches are nominal or cultural Christians, though their denominations have shifted away from biblical teaching and standards officially).  Churches that are committed to the Gospel, to the declaration of God's Word, and to the standards found therein seem to be very much holding their own.

Is there room for improvement?  Goodness, yes.  But the sky isn't falling, Chicken Little.

What to do with those eye-glazing passages

Can I be honest about something?  There are parts of the Bible that are not exciting to me.  They are Eye-Glazers, the kind where you are reading the words but the content is coming into your brain like  teacher's voice in Charlie Brown.

There.  I've said it.  And now you can 'fess up to it too.

This past week I preached through one of those EGP (Eye-Glazing Passages) in Nehemiah 3 (you can listen to the sermon here).  Because we, as a church are committed to regularly preaching through books of the Bible, you run across some of these from time to time.  So here are some thoughts, in no particular order of importance or even importance at all...

1.  If it's in there, it's worth reading.  ALL Scripture is inspired by God (2 Tim 3.16).  So read it anyway.

2.  Don't get too down if you're not mining the depths of theology when you read them.  Some of the EGP's are in the Bible because it's information, plain and simple.

3.  But...EGP's often have little insights that are fun little discoveries.  You may be surprised when you slow down and read them.

4.  As crazy as it sounds, you may want to read it more than once.  Or in smaller chunks.  That will help you not get Donut-level glazed, and may help you discover a few things in the text.  For instance, in Nehemiah 3 (which I bet I read 40 times in preparation), I saw...

• The Tekoites didn't have servant leadership (v.5) but worked harder than most anyway (v.27)
• The High Priest led the way on getting the project started (v.1)
• Shallum and his DAUGHTERS helped rebuild a section (v.12).  I'm not sure if they were corn-fed girls from the farm or really good with a chisel or what, but I didn't expect to see daughters listed among the builders (by the way, I didn't see that one until the next to last reading...no kidding).

5.  As always, I read with a pencil in hand.  Marking stuff sometimes helps me make sense or remember this or that.  That's a general principle, but it certainly applies here.  In the case of the Nehemiah 3 EGP, I remembered that I read something about the Tekoites when I hit v.27, so I was able to go find it in v.5.

I won't say the EGP's are easy or that they make for the best devotional material you have ever read.  I will say they're still worth reading, even worth preaching.

But that's just me thinking thoughts...

6 Reasons we Invest in Public Schools

I referenced this in a post last week about the cheating scandal among Atlanta Public Schools and the trial, convictions, and sentencing that followed.

So here's the question again:  what if every evangelical church looked at a school in their geographic locale and did what they could to seek the welfare of that place and those people?

Here are my top six reasons our church is invested in a local school (an elementary school in our case):

1.  We have families with kids there.

2.  We have families with kids there that we want to reach with the Gospel.

3.  We want to do "cup of cold water" and evangelistic ministries as a part of our church-wide effort to Proclaim the Kingdom.  Our adopted school, in particular, is fertile ground for both.  We do the former through a great relationship with the school nurse and counselor (more below).  We do the latter through our sponsorship and hosting of a Good News Club.

4.  It gives us an opportunity to invest in people who are pouring out their lives for others.  The teachers and staff there are generally glad to see us coming.

5.  Our church family practices generosity (and fights suburbia-induced greed) by doing something at Christmas and at the end of school for families in need.  These families are often classified by the school district as homeless and are assigned to us by the counselor and nurse.  We buy and wrap gifts at Christmas.  We pack summer survival kits in May.

6.  It reminds us that the Kingdom is bigger and broader and better than just our little expression of it.  One grandmother pulled up to pick up her kid from Good News Club and excitedly expressed her gratitude that we had invested in her grandson who had just been baptized at their church the weekend before.  Awesome.

I don't assume that we can fix everything or presume that all is well simply because we're there.  Far from it.  But, I do know we're making a difference.  And that really does matter in the lives of some kids.

Raising boys and strutting in the yard

As my boys get older, I've noticed something.  The three males in the family (Max the dog excluded) have conflict over who is the biggest rooster in the hen house.  It shows up in various ways, but I have to consistently remind the other two little roosters that I'm still the biggest.  And I might have to remind the biggest rooster that it's not always that important to be seen as the biggest as it is to be the biggest.

So here are a couple of lessons I'm learning.  I don't share these as "These are things you should do too."  I share them as, "Hey, these are things I'm discovering about myself and the process of raising boys."

1.  Patience is a virtue, but it's harder to find than snow in Miami when a little rooster is trying to unseat you.

2.  Being calm is best.  I've done this successfully once.  Once.  And it really worked.  The rest of the time I've resorted to threatening to throw a rooster in an ice cold pool.  Now that it's warming up, I need to come up with a better threat.  Or be calmer.

3.  There's a balance between letting them learn to puff their chest out and be insubordinate.  One expresses some growing levels of testosterone and manhood.  The other is rebellion and dangerous to their character.  And it's tough to figure out which is which sometimes.

4.  It's hard to remember that I'm shaping arrows to be launched at The Enemy when I can't straighten them like I think they should be.  Maybe that's because I need to learn to shoot better.

So for all those with little roosters, may God bless you as you raise them.  And despite my parenting, may mine grow up to be men who make a difference.

1-and-1 Free Throws and Spiritual Growth

March Madness is over.  Now comes a rather drab NBA playoff and then baseball.  Insert my sad face here.

And for the first time in history, my mom beat the other brothers and yours truly on our bracket picks.  I haven't even managed to tally the scores yet because of the embarrassment.

There's a situation that a player finds himself in as a basketball game goes on.  In the college game, you get to 7 team fouls in a half and you shoot a 1-and-1.  They call it that because if you don't get the first, you'll never get the second.  Missing one means missing two.  Make the first and you get a shot at the second.

There's a situation like that in the spiritual life as well.  One in which if you don't get the first, you won't get the second.  Missing one means missing both.

In our spiritual lives of following Jesus, if we don't take the time to do the basics, we'll miss the other stuff too.  In my opinion, the basics are prayer and Bible intake.  That's the first 1 of the 1-and-1.

What would be the others that you would miss?  Here's a possible list...

- Meaningful worship that is fueled be worship throughout the week and isn't solely an emotional experience.
- Service that's a joy instead of a labor.
- Sacrifice that doesn't mind being inconvenienced instead of only when I somehow benefit from it.

Should I go on?

Let me go ahead and caveat here:  if you don't read your Bible every day, you can still have meaningful worship, etc.  God is God and can do as He pleases.  Further, you can do the basics and have a bad attitude while you serve, etc.

That being said, the most consistent path to the And-1's of life with Jesus happen because a person chooses to commit regular time to prayer and Bible intake.

How to do that?  There are a number of ways.  I personally enjoy the McCheyne reading plan.  But on principle, just remember that prayer is talking with God about things of mutual concern and Bible intake is more than just reading words but interacting with a Person.

But that's just me thinking thoughts...

Hyundai, Space, and a Special Message

Just in case you missed this awesomeness, it's well worth your 4 minutes.  These folks are in our church family.

Judge Baxter, Education, and Cheating in Georgia

If you've missed the terrible cheating scandal in the Atlanta Public Schools and the court drama that followed, you've missed something that's a travesty.  Alleged educators were breaking rules for the sake of grades.  Full story here from CNN.

In his sentencing (all were found guilty of one crime or another), Judge Baxter noted that many of the kids in APS, because of their family situation and/or living conditions, had no chance for a better life except for the public education system, which failed them miserably.

First, he's right from a societal perspective.  Too many kids are stuck in tough situations with a pathetically narrow escape hatch.  I just read a statistic that 71% of African-American children are born out of wedlock!  When you consider the statistics that testify to the struggle of single moms, that's awful.

Second, there's more to it than their family, their living situation, and the failure of school administrators who loved bonuses more than they loved kids.  There's also the church, the hope of earth.

What if every church in metro Atlanta took responsibility for one school, it's welfare, it's teachers, it's "What do you need, Mrs. Counselor?"  What about your church?

If the church is the greatest institution in the world, then we can be about the greatest good in the world.  It's true that the church has been and done great good in the world at multiple times and in multiple places.  Atlanta seems like a great opportunity (and so is your neighborhood).

But that's just me thinking thoughts...

Easter and Planting a Church

FYI:  I'm going to try to re-enter the blogging world after several months away.  Thanks for hanging in there with me.

We had a record setting Easter in terms of attendance.  Every pastor brags about that, right?  That's not the point of this little story though.  It led to a great conversation on the way home with the Bear.  He was asking if we'd go to multiple services and then to a new building, etc.

Something you have to understand:  it was a genuine question fueled by some of the things he's seen and gotten to be a part of.  Whether or not he admits it (he is 12, after all), I think he likes it that he gets to hang around with dad and travel with dad and so forth.

But I told him no, we'd be looking at planting a church instead of building a building.  He asked about multiple campuses.  Again:  we'd plant a church because we want to see the Kingdom grow and that's a major way it does.

Some thoughts on why:

1.  Church planting has historically proven to be the most effective evangelistic tool.  In our ministry context, we have 275,000 people who claim NONE on their religious affiliation data.  That's over half the people in our area.  And that's a lot of people to reach.  So the most effective tool is what's needed.

2.  Our little slice of heaven is landlocked on 5 acres.  This limits our growth size.  Planting churches makes sense.

3.  Multiple services / campuses and so forth are not bad things.  But for me, the only reason I'd be open to multiple anything is if it were a step toward planting a church.  Why?  Because of the two reasons above.

4.  I wonder if 20 churches of 500 would be more able to respond to a need and turn their organizational side to meet it at a faster rate than 10 churches of 1000.  I think probably so.  Slimmer and smaller is more capable of adjustment.  Again, I'm not dogging churches of 1000.  Far from it.

5.  I like pastoring a people, not running an organization.  I have friends who can do both.  I'm grateful for them.  I'm challenged by them.  I want to get better at both.  But I want to burn my energy with people:  knowing their stories, knowing their kids's names, etc.

This is just me on a Monday, but it's something that's been in my heart for a while.  I cast no aspersions.

But that's just me thinking thoughts...